2016

Abstract: In polar regions, sastrugi are a direct manifestation of drifting snow and form the main surface roughness elements. In turn, sastrugi alter the generation of atmospheric turbulence and thus modify the wind field and the aeolian snow mass fluxes. Little attention has been paid to these feedback processes, mainly because of experimental difficulties. As a result, most polar atmospheric models currently ignore sastrugi over snow-covered regions. This paper aims at quantifying the potential influence of sastrugi on the local wind field and on snow erosion over a sastrugi-covered snowfield in coastal Ad,lie Land, East Antarctica. We focus on two erosion events during which sastrugi responses to shifts in wind direction have been interpreted from temporal variations in drag and aeolian snow mass flux measurements during austral winter 2013. Using this data set, it is shown that (i) neutral stability, 10aEuro-m drag coefficient (C-DN10) values are in the range of 1.3-1.5 x 10(-3) when the wind is well aligned with the sastrugi, (ii) as the wind shifts by only 20-30A degrees away from the streamlined direction, C-DN10 increases (by 30-120aEuro-%) and the aeolian snow mass flux decreases (by 30-80aEuro-%), thereby reflecting the growing contribution of the sastrugi form drag to the total surface drag and its inhibiting effect on snow erosion, (iii) the timescale of sastrugi aerodynamic adjustment can be as short as 3aEuro-h for friction velocities greater than 1aEuro-maEuro-s(-1) and during strong drifting snow conditions and (iv) knowing C-DN10 is not sufficient to estimate the snow erosion flux that results from drag partitioning at the surface because C-DN10 includes the contribution of the sastrugi form drag.

Abstract: Coupled ice sheet-ocean models capable of simulating moving grounding lines are just becoming available. Such models have a broad range of potential applications in studying the dynamics of marine ice sheets and tidewater glaciers, from process studies to future projections of ice mass loss and sea level rise. The Marine Ice Sheet-Ocean Model Intercomparison Project ( MISOMIP) is a community effort aimed at designing and coordinating a series of model intercomparison projects ( MIPs) for model evaluation in idealized setups, model verification based on observations, and future projections for key regions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet ( WAIS). Here we describe computational experiments constituting three interrelated MIPs for marine ice sheet models and regional ocean circulation models incorporating ice shelf cavities. These consist of ice sheet experiments under the Marine Ice Sheet MIP third phase ( MISMIP+), ocean experiments under the Ice Shelf-Ocean MIP second phase ( ISOMIP+) and coupled ice sheet-ocean experiments under the MISOMIP first phase ( MISOMIP1). All three MIPs use a shared domain with idealized bedrock topography and forcing, allowing the coupled simulations ( MISOMIP1) to be compared directly to the individual component simulations ( MISMIP+ and ISOMIP+). The experiments, which have qualitative similarities to Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf and the adjacent region of the Amundsen Sea, are designed to explore the effects of changes in ocean conditions, specifically the temperature at depth, on basal melting and ice dynamics. In future work, differences between model results will form the basis for the evaluation of the participating models.

Abstract: We investigate the problem of balancing model complexity and input data requirements in snow hydrology. For this purpose, we analyze the performance of two models of different complexity in estimating variables of interest in snow hydrology applications. These are snow depth, bulk snow density, snow water equivalent and snowmelt run-off. We quantify the differences between data and model prediction using 18years of measurements from an experimental site in the French Alps (Col de Porte, 1325m AMSL). The models involved in this comparison are a one-layer temperature-index model (HyS) and a multilayer model (Crocus). Results show that the expected loss in performance in the one-layer temperature-index model with respect to the multilayer model is low when considering snow depth, snow water equivalent and bulk snow density. As for run-off, the comparison returns less clear indications for identification of a balance. In particular, differences between the models' prediction and data with an hourly resolution are higher when considering the Crocus model than the HyS model. However, Crocus is better at reproducing sub-daily cycles in this variable. In terms of daily run-off, the multilayer physically based model seems to be a better choice, while results in terms of cumulative run-off are comparable. The better reproduction of daily and sub-daily variability of run-off suggests that use of the multilayer model may be preferable for this purpose. Variation in performance is discussed as a function of both the calibration solution chosen and the time of year. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract: Orbital tuning is central for ice core chronologies beyond annual layer counting, available back to 60 ka (i.e. thousands of years before 1950) for Greenland ice cores. While several complementary orbital tuning tools have recently been developed using delta O-18(atm), delta O-2/N-2 and air content with different orbital targets, quantifying their uncertainties remains a challenge. Indeed, the exact processes linking variations of these parameters, measured in the air trapped in ice, to their orbital targets are not yet fully understood. Here, we provide new series of delta O-2/N-2 and delta O-18(atm) data encompassing Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 5 (between 100 and 160 ka) and the oldest part (340-800 ka) of the East Antarctic EPICA Dome C (EDC) ice core. For the first time, the measurements over MIS 5 allow an inter-comparison of delta O-2/N-2 and delta O-18(atm) records from three East Antarctic ice core sites (EDC, Vostok and Dome F). This comparison highlights some site-specific delta O-2/N-2 variations. Such an observation, the evidence of a 100 ka periodicity in the delta O-2/N-2 signal and the difficulty to identify extrema and mid-slopes in delta O-2/N-2 increase the uncertainty associated with the use of delta O-2/N-2 as an orbital tuning tool, now calculated to be 3-4 ka. When combining records of delta O-18(atm) and delta O-2/N-2 from Vostok and EDC, we find a loss of orbital signature for these two parameters during periods of minimum eccentricity (similar to 400 ka, 720-800 ka). Our data set reveals a time-varying offset between delta O-2/N-2 and delta O-18(atm) records over the last 800 ka that we interpret as variations in the lagged response of delta O-18(atm) to precession. The largest offsets are identified during Terminations II, MIS 8 and MIS 16, corresponding to periods of destabilization of the Northern polar ice sheets. We therefore suggest that the occurrence of Heinrich like events influences the response of delta O-18(atm) to precession.

Abstract: Snowpack is a multiphase (photo) chemical reactor that strongly influences the air composition in polar and snow-covered regions. Snowpack plays a special role in the nitrogen cycle, as it has been shown that nitrate undergoes numerous recycling stages (including photolysis) in the snow before being permanently buried in the ice. However, the current understanding of these physicochemical processes remains very poor. Several modelling studies have attempted to reproduce (photo) chemical reactions inside snow grains, but these have relied on strong assumptions to characterise snow reactive properties, which are not well defined. Air-snow exchange processes such as adsorption, solid-state diffusion, or co-condensation also affect snow chemical composition. Here, we present a physically based model of these processes for nitrate. Using as input a 1-year-long time series of atmospheric nitrate concentration measured at Dome C, Antarctica, our model reproduces with good agreement the nitrate measurements in the surface snow. By investigating the relative importance of the main exchange processes, this study shows that, on the one hand, the combination of bulk diffusion and co-condensation allows a good reproduction of the measurements (correlation coefficient r = 0.95), with a correct amplitude and timing of summer peak concentration of nitrate in snow. During winter, nitrate concentration in surface snow is mainly driven by thermodynamic equilibrium, whilst the peak observed in summer is explained by the kinetic process of co-condensation. On the other hand, the adsorption of nitric acid on the surface of the snow grains, constrained by an already existing parameterisation for the isotherm, fails to fit the observed variations. During winter and spring, the modelled concentration of adsorbed nitrate is respectively 2.5 and 8.3-fold higher than the measured one. A strong diurnal variation driven by the temperature cycle and a peak occurring in early spring are two other major features that do not match the measurements. This study clearly demonstrates that co-condensation is the most important process to explain nitrate incorporation in snow undergoing temperature gradient metamorphism. The parameterisation developed for this process can now be used as a foundation piece in snowpack models to predict the inter-relationship between snow physical evolution and snow nitrate chemistry.

Abstract: The focus of this research has been on detecting changes in lake areas, vegetation, land surface temperatures, and the area covered by snow, using data from remote sensing. The study area covers the main (central) part of the Lena River catchment in the Yakutia region of Siberia (Russia), extending from east of Yakutsk to the central Siberian Plateau, and from the southern Lena River to north of the Vilyui River. Approximately 90% of the area is underlain by continuous permafrost. Remote sensing products were used to analyze changes in water bodies, land surface temperature (1ST), and leaf area index (LAI), as well as the occurrence and extent of forest fires, and the area and duration of snow cover. The remote sensing analyses (for 1ST, snow cover, LAI, and fire) were based on MODIS-derived NASA products (250-1000 m) for 2000 to 2011. Changes in water bodies were calculated from two mosaics of (USGS) Landsat (30 m) satellite images from 2002 and 2009. Within the study area's 315,000 km(2) the total area covered by lakes increased by 17.9% between 2002 and 2009, but this increase varied in different parts of the study area, ranging between 11% and 42%. The land surface temperatures showed a consistent warming trend, with an average increase of about 0.12 degrees C/year. The average rate of warming during the April-May transition period was 0.17 degrees C/year and 0.19 degrees C/year in the September-October period, but ranged up to 0.49 degrees C/year during September-October. Regional differences in the rates of land surface temperature change, and possible reasons for the temperature changes, are discussed with respect to changes in the land cover. Our analysis of a broad spectrum of variables over the study area suggests that the spring warming trend is very likely to be due to changes in the area covered by snow. The warming trend observed in fall does not, however, appear to be directly related to any changes in the area of snow cover, or to the atmospheric conditions, or to the proportion of the land surface that is covered by water (i.e., to wetting and drying). Supplementary data (original data, digitized version of the maps, metadata) are archived under PANGAEA (http://dx.doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.855124). (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract: We present a synthesis of the land-atmosphere carbon flux from land use and land cover change (LULCC) in Asia using multiple data sources and paying particular attention to deforestation and forest regrowth fluxes. The data sources are quasi-independent and include the U.N. Food andAgriculture Organization-Forest Resource Assessment (FAO-FRA2015; country-level inventory estimates), the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGARv4.3), the 'Houghton' bookkeeping model that incorporates FAO-FRA data, an ensemble of 8 state-of-the-art Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVM), and 2 recently published independent studies using primarily remote sensing techniques. The estimates are aggregated spatially to Southeast, East, and South Asia and temporally for three decades, 1980-1989, 1990-1999 and 2000-2009. Since 1980, net carbon emissions from LULCC in Asia were responsible for 20%-40% of global LULCC emissions, with emissions from Southeast Asia alone accounting for 15%-25% of global LULCC emissions during the same period. In the 2000s and for all Asia, three estimates (FAO-FRA, DGVM, Houghton) were in agreement of a net source of carbon to the atmosphere, with mean estimates ranging between 0.24 to 0.41 Pg Cyr(-1), whereas EDGARv4.3 suggested a net carbon sink of -0.17 Pg Cyr(-1). Three of 4 estimates suggest that LULCC carbon emissions declined by at least 34% in the preceding decade (1990-2000). Spread in the estimates is due to the inclusion of different flux components and their treatments, showing the importance to include emissions from carbon rich peatlands and land management, such as shifting cultivation and wood harvesting, which appear to be consistently underreported.

Abstract: Water stable isotopes in central Antarctic ice cores are critical to quantify past temperature changes. Accurate temperature reconstructions require one to understand the processes controlling surface snow isotopic composition. Isotopic fractionation processes occurring in the atmosphere and controlling snowfall isotopic composition are well understood theoretically and implemented in atmospheric models. However, post-deposition processes are poorly documented and understood. To quantitatively interpret the isotopic composition of water archived in ice cores, it is thus essential to study the continuum between surface water vapour, precipitation, surface snow and buried snow. Here, we target the isotopic composition of water vapour at Concordia Station, where the oldest EPICA Dome C ice cores have been retrieved. While snowfall and surface snow sampling is routinely performed, accurate measurements of surface water vapour are challenging in such cold and dry conditions. New developments in infrared spectroscopy enable now the measurement of isotopic composition in water vapour traces. Two infrared spectrometers have been deployed at Concordia, allowing continuous, in situ measurements for 1 month in December 2014-January 2015. Comparison of the results from infrared spectroscopy with laboratory measurements of discrete samples trapped using cryo-genic sampling validates the relevance of the method to measure isotopic composition in dry conditions. We observe very large diurnal cycles in isotopic composition well correlated with temperature diurnal cycles. Identification of different behaviours of isotopic composition in the water vapour associated with turbulent or stratified regime indicates a strong impact of meteorological processes in local vapour/snow interaction. Even if the vapour isotopic composition seems to be, at least part of the time, at equilibrium with the local snow, the slope of delta D against delta O-18 prevents us from identifying a unique origin leading to this isotopic composition.

Abstract: Several airborne radar-sounding surveys are used to trace internal reflections around the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica Dome C and Vostok ice core sites. Thirteen reflections, spanning the last two glacial cycles, are traced within 200 km of Dome C, a promising region for million-year-old ice, using the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics High-Capacity Radar Sounder. This provides a dated stratigraphy to 2318 m depth at Dome C. Reflection age uncertainties are calculated from the radar range precision and signal-to-noise ratio of the internal reflections. The radar stratigraphy matches well with the Multichannel Coherent Radar Depth Sounder (MCoRDS) radar stratigraphy obtained independently. We show that radar sounding enables the extension of ice core ages through the ice sheet with an additional radar-related age uncertainty of similar to 1/3-1/2 that of the ice cores. Reflections are extended along the Byrd-Totten Glacier divide, using University of Texas/Technical University of Denmark and MCoRDS surveys. However, core-to-core connection is impeded by pervasive aeolian terranes, and Lake Vostok's influence on reflection geometry. Poor radar connection of the two ice cores is attributed to these effects and suboptimal survey design in affected areas. We demonstrate that, while ice sheet internal radar reflections are generally isochronal and can be mapped over large distances, careful survey planning is necessary to extend ice core chronologies to distant regions of the East Antarctic ice sheet.

Abstract: Grassland management type (grazed or mown) and intensity (intensive or extensive) play a crucial role in the greenhouse gas balance and surface energy budget of this biome, both at field scale and at large spatial scale. However, global gridded historical information on grassland management intensity is not available. Combining modelled grass-biomass productivity with statistics of the grass-biomass demand by livestock, we reconstruct gridded maps of grassland management intensity from 1901 to 2012. These maps include the minimum area of managed vs. maximum area of unmanaged grasslands and the fraction of mown vs. grazed area at a resolution of 0.5A degrees by 0.5A degrees. The grass-biomass demand is derived from a livestock dataset for 2000, extended to cover the period 1901-2012. The grass-biomass supply (i.e. forage grass from mown grassland and biomass grazed) is simulated by the process-based model ORCHIDEE-GM driven by historical climate change, risingaEuro-CO2 concentration, and changes in nitrogen fertilization. The global area of managed grassland obtained in this study increases from 6.1aEuro-aEuro parts per thousand x aEuro-10(6)aEuro-km(2) in 1901 to 12.3aEuro-aEuro parts per thousand x aEuro-10(6)aEuro-km(2) in 2000, although the expansion pathway varies between different regions. ORCHIDEE-GM also simulated augmentation in global mean productivity and herbage-use efficiency over managed grassland during the 20th century, indicating a general intensification of grassland management at global scale but with regional differences. The gridded grassland management intensity maps are model dependent because they depend on modelled productivity. Thus specific attention was given to the evaluation of modelled productivity against a series of observations from site-level net primary productivity (NPP) measurements to two global satellite products of gross primary productivity (GPP) (MODIS-GPP and SIF data). Generally, ORCHIDEE-GM captures the spatial pattern, seasonal cycle, and interannual variability of grassland productivity at global scale well and thus is appropriate for global applications presented here.

Abstract: This paper examines the ability of optical reflectance data assimilation to improve snow depth and snow water equivalent simulations from a chain of models with the SAFRAN meteorological model driving the detailed multilayer snowpack model Crocus now including a two-stream radiative transfer model for snow, TARTES. The direct use of reflectance data, allowed by TARTES, instead of higher level snow products, mitigates uncertainties due to commonly used retrieval algorithms.Data assimilation is performed with an ensemble-based method, the Sequential Importance Resampling Particle filter, to represent simulation uncertainties. In snowpack modeling, uncertainties of simulations are primarily assigned to meteorological forcings. Here, a method of stochastic perturbation based on an autoregressive model is implemented to explicitly simulate the consequences of these uncertainties on the snowpack estimates.Through twin experiments, the assimilation of synthetic spectral reflectances matching the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) spectral bands is examined over five seasons at the Col du Lautaret, located in the French Alps. Overall, the assimilation of MODIS-like data reduces by 45aEuro-% the root mean square errors (RMSE) on snow depth and snow water equivalent. At this study site, the lack of MODIS data on cloudy days does not affect the assimilation performance significantly. The combined assimilation of MODIS-like reflectances and a few snow depth measurements throughout the 2010/2011 season further reduces RMSEs by roughly 70aEuro-%. This work suggests that the assimilation of optical reflectances has the potential to become an essential component of spatialized snowpack simulation and forecast systems. The assimilation of real MODIS data will be investigated in future works.

Abstract: Aim This paper presents a new global burned area (BA) product developed within the framework of the European Space Agency's Climate Change Initiative (CCI) programme, along with a first assessment of its potentials for atmospheric and carbon cycle modelling. Innovation Methods are presented for generating a new global BA product, along with a comparison with existing BA products, in terms of BA extension, fire size and shapes and emissions derived from biomass burnings. Main conclusions Three years of the global BA product were produced, accounting for a total BA of between 360 and 380 Mha year(-1). General omission and commission errors for BA were 0.76 and 0.64, but they decreased to 0.51 and 0.52, respectively, for sites with more than 10% BA. Intercomparison with other existing BA datasets found similar spatial and temporal trends, mainly with the BA included in the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED4), although regional differences were found (particularly in the 2006 fires of eastern Europe). The simulated carbon emissions from biomass burning averaged 2.1 Pg C year(-1).

Abstract: The atmospheric concentration of CO2 increased from 190 to 280 ppm between the last glacial maximum 21,000 years ago and the pre-industrial era(1,2). This CO2 rise and its timing have been linked to changes in the Earth's orbit, ice sheet configuration and volume, and ocean carbon storage(2,3). The ice-core record of delta(CO2)-C-13 (refs 2,4) in the atmosphere can help to constrain the source of carbon, but previous modelling studies have failed to capture the evolution of delta(CO2)-C-13 over this period(5). Here we show that simulations of the last deglaciation that include a permafrost carbon component can reproduce the ice core records between 21,000 and 10,000 years ago. We suggest that thawing permafrost, due to increasing summer insolation in the northern hemisphere, is the main source of CO2 rise between 17,500 and 15,000 years ago, a period sometimes referred to as the Mystery Interval(6). Together with a fresh water release into the North Atlantic, much of the CO2 variability associated with the Bolling-Allerod/Younger Dryas period similar to 15,000 to similar to 12,000 years ago can also be explained. In simulations of future warming we find that the permafrost carbon feedback increases global mean temperature by 10-40% relative to simulations without this feedback, with the magnitude of the increase dependent on the evolution of anthropogenic carbon emissions.

Abstract: A new rheological model is developed that builds on an elasto-brittle (EB) framework used for sea ice and rock mechanics, with the intent of representing both the small elastic deformations associated with fracturing processes and the larger deformations occurring along the faults/leads once the material is highly damaged and fragmented. A viscous-like relaxation term is added to the linear-elastic constitutive law together with an effective viscosity that evolves according to the local level of damage of the material, like its elastic modulus. The coupling between the level of damage and both mechanical parameters is such that within an undamaged ice cover the viscosity is infinitely large and deformations are strictly elastic, while along highly damaged zones the elastic modulus vanishes and most of the stress is dissipated through permanent deformations. A healing mechanism is also introduced, counterbalancing the effects of damaging over large timescales. In this new model, named Maxwell-EB after the Maxwell rheology, the irreversible and reversible deformations are solved for simultaneously; hence drift velocities are defined naturally. First idealized simulations without advection show that the model reproduces the main characteristics of sea ice mechanics and deformation: strain localization, anisotropy, intermittency and associated scaling laws.

Abstract: With climate warming, shrubs have been observed to grow on Arctic tundra. Their presence is known to increase snow height and is expected to increase the thermal insulating effect of the snowpack. An important consequence would be the warming of the ground, which will accelerate permafrost thaw, providing an important positive feedback to warming. At Bylot Island (73 degrees N, 80 degrees W) in the Canadian high Arctic where bushes of willows (Salix richardsonii Hook) are growing, we have observed the snow stratigraphy and measured the vertical profiles of snow density, thermal conductivity and specific surface area (SSA) in over 20 sites of high Arctic tundra and in willow bushes 20 to 40 cm high. We find that shrubs increase snow height, but only up to their own height. In shrubs, snow density, thermal conductivity and SSA are all significantly lower than on herb tundra. In shrubs, depth hoar which has a low thermal conductivity was observed to grow up to shrub height, while on herb tundra, depth hoar only developed to 5 to 10 cm high. The thermal resistance of the snowpack was in general higher in shrubs than on herb tundra. More signs of melting were observed in shrubs, presumably because stems absorb radiation and provide hotspots that initiate melting. When melting was extensive, thermal conductivity was increased and thermal resistance was reduced, counteracting the observed effect of shrubs in the absence of melting. Simulations of the effect of shrubs on snow properties and on the ground thermal regime were made with the Crocus snow physics model and the ISBA (Interactions between Soil-Biosphere-Atmosphere) land surface scheme, driven by in situ and reanalysis meteorological data. These simulations did not take into account the summer impact of shrubs. They predict that the ground at 5 cm depth at Bylot Island during the 2014-2015 winter would be up to 13 degrees C warmer in the presence of shrubs. Such warming may however be mitigated by summer effects.

Abstract: The values of the snow and soil thermal conductivity, k(snow) and k(soil), strongly impact the thermal regime of the ground in the Arctic, but very few data are available to test model predictions for these variables. We have monitored k(snow) and k(soil) using heated needle probes at Bylot Island in the Canadian High Arctic (73 degrees N, 80 degrees W) between July 2013 and July 2015. Few k(snow) data were obtained during the 2013-2014 winter, because little snow was present. During the 2014-2015 winter k(snow) monitoring at 2, 12 and 22 cm heights and field observations show that a depth hoar layer with k(snow) around 0.02 Wm(-1) K-1 rapidly formed. At 12 and 22 cm, wind slabs with k(snow) around 0.2 to 0.3 Wm(-1) K-1 formed. The monitoring of ksoil at 10 cm depth shows that in thawed soil k(soil) was around 0.7 Wm(-1) K-1, while in frozen soil it was around 1.9 Wm(-1) (K-)1. The transition between both values took place within a few days, with faster thawing than freezing and a hysteresis effect evidenced in the thermal conductivity-liquid water content relationship. The fast transitions suggest that the use of a bimodal distribution of k(soil) for modelling may be an interesting option that deserves further testing. Simulations of k(snow) using the snow physics model Crocus were performed. Contrary to observations, Crocus predicts high k(snow) values at the base of the snowpack (0.12-0.27 Wm(-1) K-1) and low ones in its upper parts (0.02-0.12 Wm(-1) K-1). We diagnose that this is because Crocus does not describe the large upward water vapour fluxes caused by the temperature gradient in the snow and soil. These fluxes produce mass transfer between the soil and lower snow layers to the upper snow layers and the atmosphere. Finally, we discuss the importance of the structure and properties of the Arctic snowpack on subnivean life, as species such as lemmings live under the snow most of the year and must travel in the lower snow layer in search of food.

Abstract: The atmospheric water cycle of the Arctic is evaluated via seven global reanalyses and in radiosonde observations covering the 1979-2013 period. In the regional moisture budget, evaporation and precipitation are the least consistent terms among different datasets. Despite the assimilation of radiosoundings, the reanalyses present a tendency to overestimate the moisture transport. Aside from this overestimation, the reanalyses exhibit a remarkable agreement with the radiosondes in terms of spatial and temporal patterns. The northern North Atlantic, subpolar North Pacific, and Labrador Sea stand out as the main gateways for moisture to the Arctic in all reanalyses. Because these regions correspond to the end of the storm tracks, the link between moisture transports and extratropical cyclones is further investigated by decomposing the moisture fluxes in the mean flow and transient eddy parts. In all reanalyses, the former term tends to cancel out when averaged over a latitude circle, leaving the latter to provide the bulk of the midlatitude moisture imports ( 89%-94% at 70 degrees N). Although the Arctic warms faster than the rest of the world, the impact of these changes on its water cycle remains ambiguous. In most datasets, evaporation, precipitation, and precipitable water increase in line with what is expected from a warming signal. At the same time, the moisture transports have decreased in all the reanalyses but not in the radiosonde observations, though none of these trends is statistically significant. The fluxes do not scale with the Clausius-Clapeyron relation because the increasing humidity is not correlated with the meridional wind, particularly near the surface.

Abstract: The ongoing retreat of glaciers at southern sub-polar latitudes is particularly rapid and widespread. Akin to northern sub-polar latitudes, this retreat is generally assumed to be linked to warming. However, no long-term and well-constrained glacier modeling has ever been performed to confirm this hypothesis. Here, we model the Cook Ice Cap mass balance on the Kerguelen Islands (Southern Indian Ocean, 49 degrees S) since the 1850s. We show that glacier wastage during the 2000s in the Kerguelen was among the most dramatic on Earth. We attribute 77% of the increasingly negative mass balance since the 1960s to atmospheric drying associated with a poleward shift of the mid-latitude storm track. Because precipitation modeling is very challenging for the current generation of climate models over the study area, models incorrectly simulate the climate drivers behind the recent glacier wastage in the Kerguelen. This suggests that future glacier wastage projections should be considered cautiously where changes in atmospheric circulation are expected.

Abstract: The floating ice shelves along the seaboard of the Antarctic ice sheet restrain the outflow of upstream grounded ice(1,2). Removal of these ice shelves, as shown by past ice-shelf recession and break-up, accelerates the outflow(3,4), which adds to sea-level rise. A key question in predicting future outflow is to quantify the extent of calving that might precondition other dynamic consequences and lead to loss of ice-shelf restraint. Here we delineate frontal areas that we label as 'passive shelf ice' and that can be removed without major dynamic implications, with contrasting results across the continent. The ice shelves in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas have limited or almost no 'passive' portion, which implies that further retreat of current ice-shelf fronts will yield important dynamic consequences. This region is particularly vulnerable as ice shelves have been thinning at high rates for two decades' and as upstream grounded ice rests on a backward sloping bed, a precondition to marine ice-sheet instability(6,7). In contrast to these ice shelves, Larsen C Ice Shelf, in the Weddell Sea, exhibits a large 'passive' frontal area, suggesting that the imminent calving of a vast tabular iceberg(8) will be unlikely to instantly produce much dynamic change.

Abstract: The dynamical contribution of marine ice sheets to sea level rise is largely controlled by grounding line (GL) dynamics. Two marine ice sheet model intercomparison exercises, namely MISMIP and MISMIP3d, have been proposed to the community to test and compare the ability of models to capture the GL dynamics. Both exercises are known to present a discontinuity of the friction at the GL, which is believed to increase the model sensitivity to mesh resolution. Here, using Elmer/Ice, the only Stokes model which completed both intercomparisons, the sensitivity to the mesh resolution is studied from an extended MISMIP experiment in which the friction continuously decreases over a transition distance and equals zero at the GL. Using this MISMIP-like setup, it is shown that the sensitivity to the mesh resolution is not improved for a vanishing friction at the GL. For the original MISMIP experiment, i.e. for a discontinuous friction at the GL, we further show that the results are moreover very sensitive to the way the friction is interpolated in the close vicinity of the GL. In the light of these new insights, and thanks to increased computing resources, new results for the MISMIP3d experiments obtained for higher resolutions than previously published are made available for future comparisons as the Supplement.

Abstract: In situ observations show that snow accumulation is similar to 10% larger 25 km north than south of the summit of Dome C on the east antarctic plateau. The mean wind direction is southerly. Although a slight slope-related diverging katabatic flow component is detectable, the area is an essentially flat (similar to 10m elevation change or less) homogeneous snow surface. The European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts meteorological analyses data reproduce a significant accumulation gradient and suggest that 90% of the the mean accumulation results from the 25% largest precipitation events. During these events, air masses originate from coastal areas in the north rather than from inland in the south. Radiative cooling condensation occurs on the way across the dome and as the moisture reservoir is depleted less snow is dumped 25 km south than north, with little direct impact from the local (50-km scale) topography. Air masses are warmer on average, and warmer north than south, when originating from the coast. This marginally affects the mean temperature gradients. The moisture gradients are more affected because moisture is nonlinearly related to temperature: the mean atmospheric moisture is larger north than south. Significant meteorological and hydrological gradients over such relatively small distances (50 km) over locally flat region may be an issue when interpreting ice cores: although cores are drilled at the top of domes and ridges where the slopes and elevation gradients are minimal, they sample small surfaces in areas affected by significant meteorological and hydrological spatial gradients.

Abstract: In the Northern Hemisphere, most mountain glaciers experienced their largest extent in the last millennium during the Little Ice Age (1450 to 1850 CE, LIA), a period marked by colder hemispheric temperatures than the Medieval Climate Anomaly (950 to 1250 CE, MCA), a period which coincided with glacier retreat. Here, we present a new moraine chronology based on 36Cl surface exposure dating from Lyngmarksbraeen glacier, West Greenland. Consistent with other glaciers in the western Arctic, Lyngmarksbraeen glacier experienced several advances during the last millennium, the first one at the end of the MCA, in similar to 1200 CE, was of similar amplitude to two other advances during the LIA. In the absence of any significant changes in accumulation records from South Greenland ice cores, we attribute this expansion to multi-decadal summer cooling likely driven by volcanic and/or solar forcing, and associated regional sea-ice feedbacks. Such regional multi-decadal cold conditions at the end of the MCA are neither resolved in temperature reconstructions from other parts of the Northern Hemisphere, nor captured in last millennium climate simulations.

Abstract: Radar inference of the bulk properties of glacier beds, most notably identifying basal melting, is, in general, derived from the basal reflection coefficient. On the scale of an ice sheet, unambiguous determination of basal reflection is primarily limited by uncertainty in the englacial attenuation of the radio wave, which is an Arrhenius function of temperature. Existing bed-returned power algorithms for deriving attenuation assume that the attenuation rate is regionally constant, which is not feasible at an ice-sheet-wide scale. Here we introduce a new semi-empirical framework for deriving englacial attenuation, and, to demonstrate its efficacy, we apply it to the Greenland Ice Sheet. A central feature is the use of a prior Arrhenius temperature model to estimate the spatial variation in englacial attenuation as a first guess input for the radar algorithm. We demonstrate regions of solution convergence for two input temperature fields and for independently analysed field campaigns. The coverage achieved is a trade-off with uncertainty and we propose that the algorithm can be “tuned” for discrimination of basal melt (attenuation loss uncertainty similar to 5 dB). This is supported by our physically realistic (similar to 20 dB) range for the basal reflection coefficient. Finally, we show that the attenuation solution can be used to predict the temperature bias of thermomechanical ice sheet models and is in agreement with known model temperature biases at the Dye 3 ice core.

Jourdain, N. C., Lengaigne, M., Vialard, J., Izumo, T., & Sen Gupta, A. (2016). Further Insights on the Influence of the Indian Ocean Dipole on the Following Year's ENSO from Observations and CMIP5 Models. Journal Of Climate, 29(2), 637–658.

Abstract: Recent observational studies have suggested that negative and positive Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) events (nIOD and pIOD, respectively) favor a transition toward, respectively, El Nino and La Nina events one year later. These statistical inferences are however limited by the length and uncertainties in the observational records. This paper compares observational datasets with twenty-one 155-yr historical simulations from phase 5 of CMIP (CMIP5) to assess IOD and El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) properties along with their synchronous and delayed relationships. In the observations and most CMIP5 models, it is shown that El Ninos tend to be followed by La Ninas but not the opposite, that pIODs co-occur more frequently with El Ninos than nIODs with La Ninas, that nIODs tend to be followed by El Ninos one year later less frequently than pIODs by La Ninas, and that including an IOD index in a linear prediction based on the Pacific warm water volume improves ENSO peak hindcasts at 14 months lead. The IOD-ENSO delayed relationship partly results from a combination of ENSO intrinsic properties (e.g., the tendency for El Ninos to be followed by La Ninas) and from the synchronous IOD-ENSO relationship. The results, however, reveal that this is not sufficient to explain the high prevalence of pIOD-Nina transitions in the observations and 75% of the CMIP5 models, and of nIOD-Nino transitions in 60% of CMIP5 models. This suggests that the tendency of IOD to lead ENSO by one year should be explained by a physical mechanism that, however, remains elusive in the CMIP5 models. The ability of many CMIP5 models to reproduce the delayed influence of the IOD on ENSO is nonetheless a strong incentive to explore extended-range dynamical forecasts of ENSO.

Abstract: Waterbodies such as lakes and ponds are abundant in vast Arctic landscapes and strongly affect the thermal state of the surrounding permafrost. In order to gain a better understanding of the impact of small-and medium-sized waterbodies on permafrost and the formation of thermokarst, a land surface model was developed that can represent the vertical and lateral thermal interactions between waterbodies and permafrost. The model was validated using temperature measurements from two typical waterbodies located within the Lena River delta in northern Siberia. Impact simulations were performed under current climate conditions as well as under a moderate and a strong climate-warming scenario. The performed simulations demonstrate that small waterbodies can rise the sediment surface temperature by more than 10 degrees C and accelerate permafrost thaw by a factor of between 4 and 5. Up to 70% of this additional heat flux into the ground was found to be dissipated into the surrounding permafrost by lateral ground heat flux in the case of small, shallow, and isolated waterbodies. Under moderate climate warming, the lateral heat flux was found to reduce permafrost degradation underneath waterbodies by a factor of 2. Under stronger climatic warming, however, the lateral heat flux was too small to prevent rapid permafrost degradation. The lateral heat flux was also found to strongly impede the formation of thermokarst. Despite this stabilizing effect, our simulations have demonstrated that underneath shallow waterbodies (<1 m), thermokarst initiation happens 30 to 40 years earlier than in simulations without preexisting waterbody.

Abstract: The SMOS brightness temperature (T-B) collected on the East Antarctic Plateau revealed spatial signatures at L-band that have never before been observed when only higher-frequency passive microwave observations were available, and this has opened up a new field of research. Because of the much greater penetration depth, modeling the microwave ice sheet emission requires taldng into account not only snow conditions on the surface, but should also include glaciological information. Even if the penetration depth of the L-band is not well known due to the uncertainty on the imaginary part of the ice permittivity, it is likely to be of the order of several hundreds of meters, which means that the temperature of the ice over a depth of nearly 1000 m influences the emission. Over such a depth, the temperature is related to both the surface conditions and to the ice sheet thickness, which in turn depends on the bedrock topography and on other glaciological variables. The present paper aims to provide a thorough theoretical explanation of the observed T-B spatial variation close to the Brewster angle at vertical polarization, in order to limit the effect of surface and vertical density variability in the firn. In order to provide reliable inputs to the microwave emission models used for simulating T-B data, an in-depth analysis of the temperature profiles was performed by means of glaciological models. The comparison between simulated and observed data over three transects totalling 2000 km in East Antarctica pointed out that, whereas the emission models are capable of explaining the T-B spatial variations of several kelvins (0.7 and 2.9 K), they are unable to predict its absolute value correctly. This study also shows that the main limiting factor in simulating low-frequency microwave data is the uncertainty in the currently available imaginary part of the ice permittivity. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc All rights reserved.

Abstract: Crystallographic texture (or fabric) evolution with depth along ice cores can be evaluated using borehole sonic logging measurements. These measurements provide the velocities of elastic waves that depend on the ice polycrystal anisotropy, and they can further be related to the ice texture. To do so, elastic velocities need to be inverted from a modeling approach that relate elastic velocities to ice texture. So far, two different approaches can be found. A classical model is based on the effective medium theory; the velocities are derived from elastic wave propagation in a homogeneous medium characterized by an average elasticity tensor. Alternatively, a velocity averaging approach was used in the glaciology community that averages the velocities from a given population of single crystals with different orientations. In this paper, we show that the velocity averaging method is erroneous in the present context. This is demonstrated for the case of waves propagating along the clustering direction of a highly textured polycrystal, characterized by crystallographic c axes oriented along a single maximum (cluster). In this case, two different shear wave velocities are obtained while a unique velocity is theoretically expected. While making use of this velocity averaging method, reference work by Bennett (1968) does not end with such an unphysical result. We show that this is due to the use of erroneous expressions for the shear wave velocities in a single crystal, as the starting point of the averaging process. Because of the weak elastic anisotropy of ice single crystal, the inversion of the measured velocities requires accurate modeling approaches. We demonstrate here that the inversion method based on the effective medium theory provides physically based results and should therefore be favored.

Abstract: A significant portion of the large amount of carbon (C) currently stored in soils of the permafrost region in the Northern Hemisphere has the potential to be emitted as the greenhouse gases CO2 and CH4 under a warmer climate. In this study we evaluated the variability in the sensitivity of permafrost and C in recent decades among land surface model simulations over the permafrost region between 1960 and 2009. The 15 model simulations all predict a loss of near-surface permafrost (within 3m) area over the region, but there are large differences in the magnitude of the simulated rates of loss among the models (0.2 to 58.8x10(3)km(2)yr(-1)). Sensitivity simulations indicated that changes in air temperature largely explained changes in permafrost area, although interactions among changes in other environmental variables also played a role. All of the models indicate that both vegetation and soil C storage together have increased by 156 to 954TgCyr(-1) between 1960 and 2009 over the permafrost region even though model analyses indicate that warming alone would decrease soil C storage. Increases in gross primary production (GPP) largely explain the simulated increases in vegetation and soil C. The sensitivity of GPP to increases in atmospheric CO2 was the dominant cause of increases in GPP across the models, but comparison of simulated GPP trends across the 1982-2009 period with that of a global GPP data set indicates that all of the models overestimate the trend in GPP. Disturbance also appears to be an important factor affecting C storage, as models that consider disturbance had lower increases in C storage than models that did not consider disturbance. To improve the modeling of C in the permafrost region, there is the need for the modeling community to standardize structural representation of permafrost and carbon dynamics among models that are used to evaluate the permafrost C feedback and for the modeling and observational communities to jointly develop data sets and methodologies to more effectively benchmark models.

Abstract: Recent increase in Antarctic freshwater release to the Southern Ocean is suggested to contribute to change in water masses and sea ice. However, climate models differ in their representation of the freshwater sources. Recent improvements in altimetry-based detection of small icebergs and in estimates of the mass loss of Antarctica may help better constrain the values of Antarctic freshwater releases. We propose a model-based seasonal climatology of iceberg melt over the Southern Ocean using state-of-the-art observed glaciological estimates of the Antarctic mass loss. An improved version of a Lagrangian iceberg model is coupled with a global, eddy-permitting ocean/sea ice model and compared to small icebergs observations. Iceberg melt increases sea ice cover, about 10% in annual mean sea ice volume, and decreases sea surface temperature over most of the Southern Ocean, but with distinctive regional patterns. Our results underline the importance of improving the representation of Antarctic freshwater sources. This can be achieved by forcing ocean/sea ice models with a climatological iceberg fresh-water flux. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract: The air-sea interaction in the Gulf of Guinea and its role in setting precipitation at the Guinean coast is investigated in the present paper. This study is based on satellite observations and WRF simulations forced by different sea surface temperature (SST) patterns. It shows that the seasonal cold tongue setup in the Gulf of Guinea, along with its very active northern front, tends to strongly constrain the low level atmospheric dynamics between the equator and the Guinean coast. Underlying mechanisms including local SST effect on the marine boundary layer stability and hydrostatically-changed meridional pressure gradient through changes in SST gradient are quantified in WRF regarding observations and CFSR reanalyses. Theses mechanisms strongly impact moisture flux convergence near the coast, leading to the installation of the first rainy season of the West African Monsoon (WAM) system. The current study details the mechanisms by which the Atlantic Equatorial cold tongue plays a major role in the pre-onset of the boreal WAM.

Abstract: Ice flow models are now routinely used to forecast the ice sheets' contribution to 21st century sea-level rise. For such short term simulations, the model response is greatly affected by the initial conditions. Data assimilation algorithms have been developed to invert for the friction of the ice on its bedrock using observed surface velocities. A drawback of these methods is that remaining uncertainties, especially in the bedrock elevation, lead to non-physical ice flux divergence anomalies resulting in undesirable transient effects. In this study, we compare two different assimilation algorithms based on adjoints and nudging to constrain both bedrock friction and elevation. Using synthetic twin experiments with realistic observation errors, we show that the two algorithms lead to similar performances in reconstructing both variables and allow the flux divergence anomalies to be significantly reduced.

Abstract: Water is necessary for the origin and survival of life as we know it. In the search for life-friendly worlds, water-rich planets therefore are obvious candidates and have attracted increasing attention in recent years. The surface H2O layer on such planets (containing a liquid water ocean and possibly high-pressure ice below a specific depth) could potentially be hundreds of kilometres deep depending on the water content and the evolution of the proto-atmosphere. We study possible constraints for the habitability of deep water layers and introduce a new habitability classification relevant for water-rich planets (from Mars-size to super-Earth-size planets). A new ocean model has been developed that is coupled to a thermal evolution model of the mantle and core. Our interior structure model takes into account depth-dependent thermodynamic properties and the possible formation of high-pressure ice. We find that heat flowing out of the silicate mantle can melt an ice layer from below (in some cases episodically), depending mainly on the thickness of the ocean-ice shell, the mass of the planet, the surface temperature and the interior parameters (e.g. radioactive mantle heat sources). The high pressure at the bottom of deep water-ice layers could also impede volcanism at the water-mantle boundary for both stagnant lid and plate tectonics silicate shells. We conclude that water-rich planets with a deep ocean, a large planet mass, a high average density or a low surface temperature are likely less habitable than planets with an Earth-like ocean. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Abstract: Three-dimensional ice flow modelling requires a large number of computing resources and observation data, such that 2-D simulations are often preferable. However, when there is significant lateral divergence, this must be accounted for (2.5-D models), and a flow tube is considered (volume between two horizontal flowlines). In the absence of velocity observations, this flow tube can be derived assuming that the flowlines follow the steepest slope of the surface, under a few flow assumptions. This method typically consists of scanning a digital elevation model (DEM) with a moving window and computing the curvature at the centre of this window. The ability of the 2.5-D models to account properly for a 3-D state of strain and stress has not clearly been established, nor their sensitivity to the size of the scanning window and to the geometry of the ice surface, for example in the cases of sharp ridges. Here, we study the applicability of a 2.5-D ice flow model around a dome, typical of the East Antarctic plateau conditions. A twin experiment is carried out, comparing 3-D and 2.5-D computed velocities, on three dome geometries, for several scanning windows and thermal conditions. The chosen scanning window used to evaluate the ice surface curvature should be comparable to the typical radius of this curvature. For isothermal ice, the error made by the 2.5-D model is in the range 0-10aEuro-% for weakly diverging flows, but is 2 or 3 times higher for highly diverging flows and could lead to a non-physical ice surface at the dome. For non-isothermal ice, assuming a linear temperature profile, the presence of a sharp ridge makes the 2.5-D velocity field unrealistic. In such cases, the basal ice is warmer and more easily laterally strained than the upper one, the walls of the flow tube are not vertical, and the assumptions of the 2.5-D model are no longer valid.

Abstract: Soil temperature (T-s) change is a key indicator of the dynamics of permafrost. On seasonal and interannual timescales, the variability of T-s determines the active-layer depth, which regulates hydrological soil properties and biogeochemical processes. On the multi-decadal scale, increasing T-s not only drives permafrost thaw/retreat but can also trigger and accelerate the decomposition of soil organic carbon. The magnitude of permafrost carbon feedbacks is thus closely linked to the rate of change of soil thermal regimes. In this study, we used nine process-based ecosystem models with permafrost processes, all forced by different observation-based climate forcing during the period 1960-2000, to characterize the warming rate of T-s in permafrost regions. There is a large spread of T-s trends at 20 cm depth across the models, with trend values ranging from 0.010 +/- 0.003 to 0.031 +/- 0.005 degrees C yr(-1). Most models show smaller increase in T-s with increasing depth. Air temperature (T-a) and longwave downward radiation (LWDR) are the main drivers of T-s trends, but their relative contributions differ amongst the models. Different trends of LWDR used in the forcing of models can explain 61% of their differences in T-s trends, while trends of T a only explain 5% of the differences in T-s trends. Uncertain climate forcing contributes a larger uncertainty in T-s trends (0.021 +/- 0.008 degrees C yr(-1), mean +/- standard deviation) than the uncertainty of model structure (0.012 +/- 0.001 degrees C yr(-1)), diagnosed from the range of response between different models, normalized to the same forcing. In addition, the loss rate of near-surface permafrost area, defined as total area where the maximum seasonal active-layer thickness (ALT) is less than 3m loss rate, is found to be significantly correlated with the magnitude of the trends of T-s at 1m depth across the models (R = -0.85, P = 0.003), but not with the initial total nearsurface permafrost area (R = -0.30, P = -0.438). The sensitivity of the total boreal near-surface permafrost area to T-s at 1m is estimated to be of -2.80 +/- 0.67 million km(2) degrees C-1. Finally, by using two long-term LWDR data sets and relationships between trends of LWDR and T-s across models, we infer an observation-constrained total boreal near-surface permafrost area decrease comprising between 39 +/- 14 x 10(3) and 75 +/- 14 x 10(3) km(2) yr(-1) from 1960 to 2000. This corresponds to 9-18% degradation of the current permafrost area.

Abstract: Although both the temporal and spatial variations of the snow depth are usually of interest for numerous applications, available measurement techniques are either space-oriented (e.g. terrestrial laser scans) or time-oriented (e.g. ultrasonic ranging probe). Because of snow heterogeneity, measuring depth in a single point is insufficient to provide accurate and representative estimates. We present a cost-effective automatic instrument to acquire spatio-temporal variations of snow depth. The device comprises a laser meter mounted on a 2-axis stage and can scan approximate to 200 000 points over an area of 100-200 m(2) in 4 h. Two instruments, installed in Antarctica (Dome C) and the French Alps (Col de Porte), have been operating continuously and unattended over 2015 with a success rate of 65 and 90% respectively. The precision of single point measurements and long-term stability were evaluated to be about 1 cm and the accuracy to be 5 cm or better. The spatial variability in the scanned area reached 7-10 cm (root mean square) at both sites, which means that the number of measurements is sufficient to average out the spatial variability and yield precise mean snow depth. With such high precision, it was possible for the first time at Dome C to (1) observe a 3-month period of regular and slow increase of snow depth without apparent link to snowfalls and (2) highlight that most of the annual accumulation stems from a single event although several snowfall and strong wind events were predicted by the ERA-Interim reanalysis. Finally the paper discusses the benefit of laser scanning compared to multiplying single-point sensors in the context of monitoring snow depth.

Abstract: Ice is a highly transparent material in the visible. According to the most widely used database (IA2008; Warren and Brandt, 2008), the ice absorption coefficient reaches values lower than 10(-3) m(-1) around 400 nm. These values were obtained from a vertical profile of spectral radiance measured in a single snow layer at Dome C in Antarctica. We reproduced this experiment using an optical fiber inserted in the snow to record 56 profiles from which 70 homogeneous layers were identified. Applying the same estimation method on every layer yields 70 ice absorption spectra. They present a significant variability but absorption coefficients are overall larger than IA2008 by 1 order of magnitude at 400-450 nm. We devised another estimation method based on Bayesian inference that treats all the profiles simultaneously. It reduces the statistical variability and confirms the higher absorption, around 2 x 10(-2) m(-1) near the minimum at 440 nm. We explore potential instrumental artifacts by developing a 3-D radiative transfer model able to explicitly account for the presence of the fiber in the snow. The simulation shows that the radiance profile is indeed perturbed by the fiber intrusion, but the error on the ice absorption estimate is not larger than a factor of 2. This is insufficient to explain the difference between our new estimate and IA2008. The same conclusion applies regarding the plausible contamination by black carbon or dust, concentrations reported in the literature are insufficient. Considering the large number of profiles acquired for this study and other estimates from the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA), we nevertheless estimate that ice absorption values around 10(-2) m(-1) at the minimum are more likely than under 10(-3) m(-1). A new estimate in the range 400-600 nm is provided for future modeling of snow, cloud, and sea-ice optical properties. Most importantly, we recommend that modeling studies take into account the large uncertainty of the ice absorption coefficient in the visible and that future estimations of the ice absorption coefficient should also thoroughly account for the impact of the measurement method.

Abstract: Spectral albedo of the snow surface in the visible/near-infrared range has been measured for 3 years by an automatic spectral radiometer installed at Dome C (75A degrees aEuro-S, 123A degrees aEuro-E) in Antarctica in order to retrieve the specific surface area (SSA) of superficial snow. This study focuses on the uncertainties of the SSA retrieval due to instrumental and data processing limitations. We find that when the solar zenith angle is high, the main source of uncertainties is the imperfect angular response of the light collectors. This imperfection introduces a small spurious wavelength-dependent trend in the albedo spectra which greatly affects the SSA retrieval. By modeling this effect, we show that for typical snow and illumination conditions encountered at Dome C, retrieving SSA with an accuracy better than 15aEuro-% (our target) requires the difference of response between 400 and 1100aEuro-nm to not exceed 2. Such a small difference can be achieved only by (i) a careful design of the collectors, (ii) an ad hoc correction of the spectra using the actual measured angular response of the collectors, and (iii) for solar zenith angles less than 75A degrees. The 3-year time series of retrieved SSA features a 3-fold decrease every summer which is significantly larger than the estimated uncertainties. This highlights the high dynamics of near-surface SSA at Dome C.

Abstract: This study aims to better understand and quantify the uncertainties in microwave snow emission models using the Dense Media Radiative Theory Multi-Layer model (DMRT-ML) with in situ measurements of snow properties. We use surface-based radiometric measurements at 10.67, 19 and 37aEuro-GHz in boreal forest and subarctic environments and a new in situ data set of measurements of snow properties (profiles of density, snow grain size and temperature, soil characterization and ice lens detection) acquired in the James Bay and Umiujaq regions of Northern Qu,bec, Canada. A snow excavation experiment – where snow was removed from the ground to measure the microwave emission of bare frozen ground – shows that small-scale spatial variability (less than 1aEuro-km) in the emission of frozen soil is small. Hence, in our case of boreal organic soil, variability in the emission of frozen soil has a small effect on snow-covered brightness temperature (T-B). Grain size and density measurement errors can explain the errors at 37aEuro-GHz, while the sensitivity of T-B at 19aEuro-GHz to snow increases during the winter because of the snow grain growth that leads to scattering. Furthermore, the inclusion of observed ice lenses in DMRT-ML leads to significant improvements in the simulations at horizontal polarization (H-pol) for the three frequencies (up to 20aEuro-K of root mean square error). However, representation of the spatial variability of T-B remains poor at 10.67 and 19aEuro-GHz at H-pol given the spatial variability of ice lens characteristics and the difficulty in simulating snowpack stratigraphy related to the snow crust. The results also show that, in our study with the given forest characteristics, forest emission reflected by the snow-covered surface can increase the T-B up to 40aEuro-K. The forest contribution varies with vegetation characteristics and a relationship between the downwelling contribution of vegetation and the proportion of pixels occupied by vegetation (trees) in fisheye pictures was found. We perform a comprehensive analysis of the components that contribute to the snow-covered microwave signal, which will help to develop DMRT-ML and to improve the required field measurements. The analysis shows that a better consideration of ice lenses and snow crusts is essential to improve T-B simulations in boreal forest and subarctic environments.

Abstract: We use wind speed and temperature measurements taken along a 45-m meteorological tower located at Dome C, Antarctica (, ) to highlight and characterize the Ekman spiral. Firstly, temperature records reveal that the atmospheric boundary layer at Dome C is stable during winter and summer nights (i.e., 85 % of the time). The wind vector, in both speed and direction, also shows a strong dependence with elevation. An Ekman model was then fitted to the measurements. Results show that the wind vector follows the Ekman spiral structure for more than 20 % of the year (2009). Most Ekman spirals have been detected during summer nights, that is, when the boundary layer is slightly stratified. During these episodes, the boundary-layer height ranged from 25 to 100 m, the eddy viscosity from 0.004 to , and the Richardson number from zero to 1.6.

Abstract: Resistance at the ice-bed interface provides a strong control on the response of ice streams and outlet glaciers to external forcing, yet it is not observable by remote sensing. We used inverse methods constrained by satellite observations to infer the basal resistance to flow underneath three of the Greenland Ice Sheet's largest outlet glaciers. In regions of fast ice flow and high (>250kPa) driving stresses, ice is often assumed to flow over a strong bed. We found, however, that the beds of these three glaciers provide almost no resistance under the fast-flowing trunk. Instead, resistance to flow is provided by the lateral margins and stronger beds underlying slower-moving ice upstream. Additionally, we found isolated patches of high basal resistivity within the predominantly weak beds. Because these small-scale (<1 ice thickness) features may be artifacts of overfitting our solution to measurement errors, we tested their robustness to different degrees of regularization.

Abstract: The isotopic compositions of oxygen and hydrogen in ice cores are invaluable tools for the reconstruction of past climate variations. Used alone, they give insights into the variations of the local temperature, whereas taken together they can provide information on the climatic conditions at the point of origin of the moisture. However, recent analyses of snow from shallow pits indicate that the climatic signal can become erased in very low accumulation regions, due to local processes of snow reworking. The signal-to-noise ratio decreases and the climatic signal can then only be retrieved using stacks of several snow pits. Obviously, the signal is not completely lost at this stage, otherwise it would be impossible to extract valuable climate information from ice cores as has been done, for instance, for the last glaciation. To better understand how the climatic signal is passed from the precipitation to the snow, we present here results from varied snow samples from East Antarctica. First, we look at the relationship between isotopes and temperature from a geographical point of view, using results from three traverses across Antarctica, to see how the relationship is built up through the distillation process. We also take advantage of these measures to see how second-order parameters (d-excess and O-17-excess) are related to delta O-18 and how they are controlled. d-excess increases in the interior of the continent (i.e., when delta O-18 decreases), due to the distillation process, whereas O-17-excess decreases in remote areas, due to kinetic fractionation at low temperature. In both cases, these changes are associated with the loss of original information regarding the source. Then, we look at the same relationships in precipitation samples collected over 1 year at Dome C and Vostok, as well as in surface snow at Dome C. We note that the slope of the delta O-18 vs. temperature (T) relationship decreases in these samples compared to those from the traverses, and thus caution is advocated when using spatial slopes for past climate reconstruction. The second-order parameters behave in the same way in the precipitation as in the surface snow from traverses, indicating that similar processes are active and that their interpretation in terms of source climatic parameters is strongly complicated by local temperature effects in East Antarctica. Finally we check if the same relationships between delta O-18 and second-order parameters are also found in the snow from four snow pits. While the d-excess remains opposed to delta O-18 in most snow pits, the O-17-excess is no longer positively correlated to delta O-18 and even shows anti-correlation to delta O-18 at Vostok. This may be due to a stratospheric influence at this site and/or to post-deposition processes.

Abstract: The Land Surface, Snow and Soil Moisture Model Intercomparison Project (LS3MIP) is designed to provide a comprehensive assessment of land surface, snow and soil moisture feedbacks on climate variability and climate change, and to diagnose systematic biases in the land modules of current Earth system models (ESMs). The solid and liquid water stored at the land surface has a large influence on the regional climate, its variability and predictability, including effects on the energy, water and carbon cycles. Notably, snow and soil moisture affect surface radiation and flux partitioning properties, moisture storage and land surface memory. They both strongly affect atmospheric conditions, in particular surface air temperature and precipitation, but also large-scale circulation patterns. However, models show divergent responses and representations of these feedbacks as well as systematic biases in the underlying processes. LS3MIP will provide the means to quantify the associated uncertainties and better constrain climate change projections, which is of particular interest for highly vulnerable regions (densely populated areas, agricultural regions, the Arctic, semi-arid and other sensitive terrestrial ecosystems). The experiments are subdivided in two components, the first addressing systematic land biases in offline mode (“LMIP”, building upon the 3rd phase of Global Soil Wetness Project; GSWP3) and the second addressing land feedbacks attributed to soil moisture and snow in an integrated framework (“LFMIP”, building upon the GLACE-CMIP blueprint).

Abstract: Net primary production is the initial step of the carbon cycle in which atmospheric CO2 is fixed by plants. The responses of net primary production (NPP) to climate change and CO2 are key processes that have the potential to significantly affect the climate-carbon feedback and future atmospheric CO2 levels. Understanding future NPP changes is important for China that became the world's largest CO2 emitter since 2006. Here, we analysed NPP changes in China under the four emission scenarios from 11 Earth system models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5. We find a general increase of NPP over the 21st century under the four emission scenarios, with the large percentage increase in northwestern China and Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. However, there is a large model spread in the increase of NPP at both country and local scales. We present a statistical approach to assess various processes to explain this large spread, and find that the large spread at the country level is predominantly attributed to inter-model difference in parameterization of CO2 fertilization effect within each emission scenario. But the parameterization of CO2 fertilization effect not always dominates over the model spread across China. When it comes to the local scale, the model spread can be significantly contributed by inter-model difference in parameterization of NPP responses to precipitation along with precipitation projection in northwestern China. Our findings provide the reasons for divergent responses of future NPP through process decomposition and are the first to pinpoint that the model process dominating over the uncertainty exhibits regional dependence.

Abstract: A realistic simulation of snow cover and its thermal properties are important for accurate modelling of permafrost. We analyse simulated relationships between air and near-surface (20 cm) soil temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere permafrost region during winter, with a particular focus on snow insulation effects in nine land surface models, and compare them with observations from 268 Russian stations. There are large cross-model differences in the simulated differences between near-surface soil and air temperatures (Delta T; 3 to 14 degrees C), in the sensitivity of soil-to-air temperature (0.13 to 0.96 degrees C degrees C-1), and in the relationship between Delta T and snow depth. The observed relationship between Delta T and snow depth can be used as a metric to evaluate the effects of each model's representation of snow insulation, hence guide improvements to the model's conceptual structure and process parameterisations. Models with better performance apply multilayer snow schemes and consider complex snow processes. Some models show poor performance in representing snow insulation due to underestimation of snow depth and/or overestimation of snow conductivity. Generally, models identified as most acceptable with respect to snow insulation simulate reasonable areas of near-surface permafrost (13.19 to 15.77 million km(2)). However, there is not a simple relationship between the sophistication of the snow insulation in the acceptable models and the simulated area of Northern Hemisphere near-surface permafrost, because several other factors, such as soil depth used in the models, the treatment of soil organic matter content, hydrology and vegetation cover, also affect the simulated permafrost distribution.

Abstract: The Coulomb's failure criterion, which postulates that failure occurs along a fault plane when the applied shear stress overcomes a resistance made of two parts of different nature, cohesion, and friction, remains the standard conceptual framework of faulting mechanics. More recently, rate-and-state friction laws became the main modeling tool of the seismic cycle. These laws implicitly assume that only frictional resistance sets the fault strength and its evolution. We therefore raise the question of the role of cohesion and related healing/sealing mechanisms on fault mechanics. We designed an original laboratory experiment based on a model material, an ice thin layer sitting on top of a water tank and mechanically deformed at various rates with a circular Couette-like geometry. This allowed sliding along the fault plane over arbitrarily large slip distances, and analyzing the competition between faulting and cohesion-healing rates, whereas frictional resistance, resulting from the fault roughness, is limited in magnitude. We show that cohesion-healing plays an essential role in the time evolution of the interface strength under constant loading rate. In particular, the magnitudes of shear stress fluctuations are observed to be temperature and velocity weakening. The present experiment shares several properties similar to that of active faults during seismic cycles, suggesting that cohesive healing could control some of these features: scale invariance properties, Gutenberg-Richter law of rupture event size distribution, Omori's law of energy dissipation, at least after major ruptures, time asymmetry in energy dissipation, and periods of creep under high shear stress alternating with major earthquake-like ruptures.

Abstract: Thawing of permafrost in a warming climate is governed by a complex interplay of different processes of which only conductive heat transfer is taken into account in most model studies. However, observations in many permafrost landscapes demonstrate that lateral and vertical movement of water can have a pronounced influence on the thaw trajectories, creating distinct landforms, such as thermokarst ponds and lakes, even in areas where permafrost is otherwise thermally stable. Novel process parameterizations are required to include such phenomena in future projections of permafrost thaw and subsequent climatic-triggered feedbacks. In this study, we present a new land-surface scheme designed for permafrost applications, CryoGrid 3, which constitutes a flexible platform to explore new parameterizations for a range of permafrost processes. We document the model physics and employed parameterizations for the basis module CryoGrid 3, and compare model results with in situ observations of surface energy balance, surface temperatures, and ground thermal regime from the Samoylov permafrost observatory in NE Siberia. The comparison suggests that CryoGrid 3 can not only model the evolution of the ground thermal regime in the last decade, but also consistently reproduce the chain of energy transfer processes from the atmosphere to the ground. In addition, we demonstrate a simple 1-D parameterization for thaw processes in permafrost areas rich in ground ice, which can phenomenologically reproduce both formation of thermokarst ponds and subsidence of the ground following thawing of ice-rich subsurface layers. Long-term simulation from 1901 to 2100 driven by reanalysis data and climate model output demonstrate that the hydrological regime can both accelerate and delay permafrost thawing. If meltwater from thawed ice-rich layers can drain, the ground subsides, as well as the formation of a talik, are delayed. If the meltwater pools at the surface, a pond is formed that enhances heat transfer in the ground and leads to the formation of a talik. The model results suggest that the trajectories of future permafrost thaw are strongly influenced by the cryostratigraphy, as determined by the late Quaternary history of a site.

Abstract: Boreal fires have immediate effects on regional carbon budgets by emitting CO2 into the atmosphere at the time of burning, but they also have legacy effects by initiating a long-term carbon sink during post-fire vegetation recovery. Quantifying these different effects on the current-day pan-boreal (44-84 degrees N) carbon balance and quantifying relative contributions of legacy sinks by past fires is important for understanding and predicting the carbon dynamics in this region. Here we used the global dynamic vegetation model ORCHIDEE-SPITFIRE (Organising Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic Ecosystems – SPread and InTensity of FIRE) to attribute the contributions by fires in different decades between 1850 and 2009 to the carbon balance of 2000-2009, taking into account the atmospheric CO2 change and climate change since 1850. The fire module of ORCHIDEE-SPITFIRE was turned off for each decade in turn and was also turned off before and after the decade in question in order to model the legacy carbon trajectory by fires in each past decade. We found that, unsurprisingly, fires that occurred in 2000-2009 are a carbon source (-0.17 Pg C yr(-1)) for the carbon balance of 2000-2009, whereas fires in all decades before 2000 contribute carbon sinks with a collective contribution of 0.23 Pg C yr(-1). This leaves a net fire sink effect of 0.06 Pg Cyr(-1), or 6.3% of the simulated regional carbon sink (0.95 Pg C yr(-1)). Further, fires with an age of 10-40 years (i.e., those that occurred during 1960-1999) contribute more than half of the total sink effect of fires. The small net sink effect of fires indicates that current-day fire emissions are roughly balanced out by legacy sinks. The future role of fires in the regional carbon balance remains uncertain and will depend on whether changes in fires and associated carbon emissions will exceed the enhanced sink effects of previous fires, both being strongly affected by global change.

Abstract: Substantial quantities of organic carbon (OC) are stored in the thick, ice-rich, and organic-rich sediments called yedoma deposits, distributed in eastern Siberia and Alaska today. Quantifying yedoma carbon stocks during the glacial period is important for understanding how much carbon could have been decomposed during the last deglaciation. Yet processes that yield the formation of thick frozen OC in yedoma deposits aremissing in global carbon cycle models. Here we incorporate sedimentation parameterizations into the Organizing Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic Ecosystems (ORCHIDEE-MICT) land surface model, which leads to reasonable results in OC vertical distribution and regional budgets, compared with site-specific observations and inventories for today's nondegraded yedoma region. Simulated total soil OC stock for the northern permafrost region during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) is 1536-1592 Pg C, of which 390-446 Pg C is within today's yedoma region. This result is an underestimation since we did not account for the potentially much larger yedoma area during the LGM than the present day.

Abstract: Using the original setup described in Gallee et al. (2013), the MAR regional climate model including a coupled snowpack/aeolian snow transport parameterization, was run at a fine spatial (5 km horizontal and 2m vertical) resolution over 1 summer month in coastal Adelie Land. Different types of feedback were taken into account in MAR including drag partitioning caused by surface roughness elements. Model outputs are compared with observations made at two coastal locations, D17 and D47, situated respectively 10 and 100 km inland. Wind speed was correctly simulated with positive values of the Nash test (0.60 for D17 and 0.37 for D47) but wind velocities above 10 m s(-1) were underestimated at both D17 and D47; at D47, the model consistently underestimated wind velocity by 2 m s(-1). Aeolian snow transport events were correctly reproduced with the right timing and a good temporal resolution at both locations except when the maximum particle height was less than 1 m. The threshold friction velocity, evaluated only at D17 for a 7-day period without snowfall, was overestimated. The simulated aeolian snow mass fluxes between 0 and 2m at D47 displayed the same variations but were underestimated compared to the second-generation FlowCapt (TM) values, as was the simulated relative humidity at 2m above the surface. As a result, MAR underestimated the total aeolian horizontal snow transport for the first 2 m above the ground by a factor of 10 compared to estimations by the second-generation FlowCapt (TM). The simulation was significantly improved at D47 if a 1-order decrease in the magnitude of z(0) was accounted for, but agreement with observations was reduced at D17. Our results suggest that z(0) may vary regionally depending on snowpack properties, which are involved in different types of feedback between aeolian transport of snow and z(0).

Abstract: The optical turbulence above Dome C in winter is mainly concentrated in the first tens of metres above the ground. Properties of this so-called surface layer (SL) were investigated during the period 2007-2012 by a set of sonic anemometers placed on a 45 m high tower. We present the results of this long-term monitoring of the refractive index structure constant C-n(2) within the SL, and confirm its thickness of 35 m. We give statistics of the contribution of the SL to the seeing and coherence time. We also investigate properties of large-scale structure functions of the temperature and show evidence of a second inertial zone at kilometric spatial scales.

Abstract: It is now widely acknowledged that past Northern Hemisphere ice sheets covering Canada and northern Europe at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) exerted a strong influence on climate by causing changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulations. In turn, these changes may have impacted the development of the ice sheets themselves through a combination of different feedback mechanisms. The present study is designed to investigate the potential impact of the North American ice sheet on the surface mass balance (SMB) of the Eurasian ice sheet driven by simulated changes in the past glacial atmospheric circulation. Using the LMDZ5 atmospheric circulation model, we carried out 12 experiments under constant LGM conditions for insolation, greenhouse gases and ocean. In these experiments, the Eurasian ice sheet is removed. The 12 experiments differ in the North American ice-sheet topography, ranging from a white and flat (present-day topography) ice sheet to a full-size LGM ice sheet. This experimental design allows the albedo and the topographic impacts of the North American ice sheet onto the climate to be disentangled. The results are compared to our baseline experiment where both the North American and the Eurasian ice sheets have been removed. In summer, the sole albedo effect of the American ice sheet modifies the pattern of planetary waves with respect to the no-ice-sheet case, resulting in a cooling of the northwestern Eurasian region. By contrast, the atmospheric circulation changes induced by the topography of the North American ice sheet lead to a strong decrease of this cooling. In winter, the Scandinavian and the Barents-Kara regions respond differently to the American ice-sheet albedo effect: in response to atmospheric circulation changes, Scandinavia becomes warmer and total precipitation is more abundant, whereas the Barents-Kara area becomes cooler with a decrease of convective processes, causing a decrease of total precipitation. The gradual increase of the altitude of the American ice sheet leads to less total precipitation and snowfall and to colder temperatures over both the Scandinavian and the Barents and Kara sea sectors. We then compute the resulting annual surface mass balance over the Fennoscandian region from the simulated temperature and precipitation fields used to force an ice-sheet model. It clearly appears that the SMB is dominated by the ablation signal. In response to the summer cooling induced by the American ice-sheet albedo, high positive SMB values are obtained over the Eurasian region, leading thus to the growth of an ice sheet. On the contrary, the gradual increase of the American ice-sheet altitude induces more ablation over the Eurasian sector, hence limiting the growth of Fennoscandia. To test the robustness of our results with respect to the Eurasian ice sheet state, we carried out two additional LMDZ experiments with new boundary conditions involving both the American (flat or full LGM) and high Eurasian ice sheets. The most striking result is that the Eurasian ice sheet is maintained under full-LGM North American ice-sheet conditions, but loses similar to 10% of its mass compared to the case in which the North American ice sheet is flat. These new findings qualitatively confirm the conclusions from our first series of experiments and suggest that the development of the Eurasian ice sheet may have been slowed down by the growth of the American ice sheet, offering thereby a new understanding of the evolution of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets throughout glacial-interglacial cycles.

Abstract: Thermokarst lakes are typical features of the northern permafrost ecosystems, and play an important role in the thermal exchange between atmosphere and subsurface. The objective of this study is to describe the main thermal processes of the lakes and to quantify the heat exchange with the underlying sediments. The thermal regimes of five lakes located within the continuous permafrost zone of northern Siberia (Lena River Delta) were investigated using hourly water temperature and water level records covering a 3-year period (2009-2012), together with bathymetric survey data. The lakes included thermokarst lakes located on Holocene river terraces that may be connected to Lena River water during spring flooding, and a thermokarst lake located on deposits of the Pleistocene Ice Complex. Lakes were covered by ice up to 2m thick that persisted for more than 7 months of the year, from October until about mid-June. Lake-bottom temperatures increased at the start of the ice-covered period due to upward-directed heat flux from the underlying thawed sediment. Prior to ice break-up, solar radiation effectively warmed the water beneath the ice cover and induced convective mixing. Ice break-up started at the beginning of June and lasted until the middle or end of June. Mixing occurred within the entire water column from the start of ice break-up and continued during the ice-free periods, as confirmed by the Wedderburn numbers, a quantitative measure of the balance between wind mixing and stratification that is important for describing the biogeochemical cycles of lakes. The lake thermal regime was modeled numerically using the FLake model. The model demonstrated good agreement with observations with regard to the mean lake temperature, with a good reproduction of the summer stratification during the ice-free period, but poor agreement during the ice-covered period. Modeled sensitivity to lake depth demonstrated that lakes in this climatic zone with mean depths > 5m develop continuous stratification in summer for at least 1 month. The modeled vertical heat flux across the bottom sediment tends towards an annual mean of zero, with maximum downward fluxes of about 5Wm(-2) in summer and with heat released back into the water column at a rate of less than 1Wm(-2) during the ice-covered period. The lakes are shown to be efficient heat absorbers and effectively distribute the heat through mixing. Monthly bottom water temperatures during the ice-free period range up to 15 degrees C and are therefore higher than the associated monthly air or ground temperatures in the surrounding frozen permafrost landscape. The investigated lakes remain unfrozen at depth, with mean annual lake-bottom temperatures of between 2.7 and 4 degrees C.

Abstract: It is important to correctly simulate permafrost in global climate models, since the stored carbon represents the source of a potentially important climate feedback. This carbon feedback depends on the physical state of the permafrost. We have therefore included improved physical permafrost processes in JULES (Joint UK Land Environment Simulator), which is the land-surface scheme used in the Hadley Centre climate models. The thermal and hydraulic properties of the soil were modified to account for the presence of organic matter, and the insulating effects of a surface layer of moss were added, allowing for fractional moss cover. These processes are particularly relevant in permafrost zones. We also simulate a higher-resolution soil column and deeper soil, and include an additional thermal column at the base of the soil to represent bedrock. In addition, the snow scheme was improved to allow it to run with arbitrarily thin layers. Point-site simulations at Samoylov Island, Siberia, show that the model is now able to simulate soil temperatures and thaw depth much closer to the observations. The root mean square error for the near-surface soil temperatures reduces by approximately 30 %, and the active layer thickness is reduced from being over 1m too deep to within 0.1m of the observed active layer thickness. All of the model improvements contribute to improving the simulations, with organic matter having the single greatest impact. A new method is used to estimate active layer depth more accurately using the fraction of unfrozen water. Soil hydrology and snow are investigated further by holding the soil moisture fixed and adjusting the parameters to make the soil moisture and snow density match better with observations. The root mean square error in near-surface soil temperatures is reduced by a further 20% as a result.

Abstract: There is a large amount of organic carbon stored in permafrost in the northern high latitudes, which may become vulnerable to microbial decomposition under future climate warming. In order to estimate this potential carbon-climate feedback it is necessary to correctly simulate the physical dynamics of permafrost within global Earth system models (ESMs) and to determine the rate at which it will thaw. Additional new processes within JULES, the land-surface scheme of the UK ESM (UKESM), include a representation of organic soils, moss and bedrock and a modification to the snow scheme; the sensitivity of permafrost to these new developments is investigated in this study. The impact of a higher vertical soil resolution and deeper soil column is also considered. Evaluation against a large group of sites shows the annual cycle of soil temperatures is approximately 25% too large in the standard JULES version, but this error is corrected by the model improvements, in particular by deeper soil, organic soils, moss and the modified snow scheme. A comparison with active layer monitoring sites shows that the active layer is on average just over 1 m too deep in the standard model version, and this bias is reduced by 70 cm in the improved version. Increasing the soil vertical resolution allows the full range of active layer depths to be simulated; by contrast, with a poorly resolved soil at least 50% of the permafrost area has a maximum thaw depth at the centre of the bottom soil layer. Thus all the model modifications are seen to improve the permafrost simulations. Historical permafrost area corresponds fairly well to observations in all simulations, covering an area between 14 and 19 million km(2). Simulations under two future climate scenarios show a reduced sensitivity of permafrost degradation to temperature, with the near-surface permafrost loss per degree of warming reduced from 1.5 million km(2) degrees C-1 in the standard version of JULES to between 1.1 and 1.2 million km(2) degrees C-1 in the new model version. However, the near-surface permafrost area is still projected to approximately half by the end of the 21st century under the RCP8.5 scenario.

Abstract: Nucleation mechanisms occurring during discontinuous dynamic recrystallization (DDRX) is investigated by Digital Image Correlation (DIC) during creep experiment on polycrystalline columnar ice. Thanks to the columnar microstructure, discrimination of the nucleus can be done without ambiguity comparing pre- and post- deformation texture. In-situ DIC analyses are performed around a triple junction were nucleation occurred to follow strain field evolution. Strain field evolution appears strongly linked to nucleation mechanisms, local grain boundary migration and sub-grain boundary formation such as tilt sub-grain boundaries and kink bands. Nucleation processes are correlated with strong strain heterogeneities well characterized by the principal strains evaluated by DIC. It was possible to follow nucleus growth through the evolution of strain localization along the new grain boundaries. Kink bands act as a buffer zone close to the triple junction and accommodate shear parallel to the c-axis. The local strain field appears to be efficiently redistributed by recrystallization processes which create a new microstructure more compatible with the local stresses. (C) 2015 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract: We use the BISICLES adaptive mesh ice sheet model to carry out one, two, and three century simulations of the fast-flowing ice streams of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, deploying sub-kilometer resolution around the grounding line since coarser resolution results in substantial underestimation of the response. Each of the simulations begins with a geometry and velocity close to present-day observations, and evolves according to variation in meteoric ice accumulation rates and oceanic ice shelf melt rates. Future changes in accumulation and melt rates range from no change, through anomalies computed by atmosphere and ocean models driven by the El and A1B emissions scenarios, to spatially uniform melt rate anomalies that remove most of the ice shelves over a few centuries. We find that variation in the resulting ice dynamics is dominated by the choice of initial conditions and ice shelf melt rate and mesh resolution, although ice accumulation affects the net change in volume above flotation to a similar degree. Given sufficient melt rates, we compute grounding line retreat over hundreds of kilometers in every major ice stream, but the ocean models do not predict such melt rates outside of the Amundsen Sea Embayment until after 2100. Within the Amundsen Sea Embayment the largest single source of variability is the onset of sustained retreat in Thwaites Glacier, which can triple the rate of eustatic sea level rise.

Abstract: We demonstrate the potential of using freely available satellite data from the Landsat ETM+ sensor for generating carbon balance estimates for lowland peatlands. We used a lowland ombrotrophic peatland in the UK as our test site representing a range of peatland conditions. A literature survey was undertaken to identify the simplest classification schema that could be used to distinguish ecohydrological classes for carbon sequestration on the peatland surface. These were defined as: active raised bog, Eriophorum-dominated bog, milled unvegetated peat and drained or degraded bog, with bracken and Carr woodland to define the bog edges. A maximum likelihood classifier (MLC) was used to map the spatial distribution of the six classes on the peatland surface. A Landsat ETM+ band-5 derived brightness-texture layer created using geostatistical methods greatly improved classification accuracies. The results showed the best accuracy of the MLC, when compared to finer scale methods, with Landsat ETM+ bands alone was 74%, which increased to 93% when including the brightness-texture layer. An estimate of carbon sequestration status of the site was performed that showed good agreement with the results of a finer-scale-based estimate. The coarse-scale map estimating -12000kg carbon and fine scale map estimating +23000kg carbon per annum. We conclude that with further development of our tool, if textural measures are used alongside optical data in MLC, it is possible to achieve good quality estimates of carbon balance status for peatland landscapes. This represents a potentially powerful operational toolkit for land managers and policy makers who require spatially distributed information on carbon storage and release for carbon pricing and effective land management. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract: A global 2-D (latitude-altitude) model describing both the stratospheric circulation and the detailed formation and growth of stratospheric aerosols is used to simulate the stratospheric cycle of cosmogenic isotopes of beryllium, Be-7 and Be-10. These isotopes have been extensively used as tracers of stratospheric air, as well as of solar variability. The simulation of these isotopes is used to quantify the relative importance of transport, microphysic processes related to aerosols, and radioactive decay, on their concentrations. Calculations of model budget show that the vertical transfer of these isotopes due to the aerosol sedimentation contributes to about half of the stratospheric Be-10 flux into the troposphere, but is negligible for the Be-7 budget. The simulated residence time of these isotopes in the lower stratosphere is monotonically related to the age of air; however, this relationship is neither linear nor uniform, which biases the age of air inferred from these isotopes.

Abstract: The effective thermal conductivity of snow, k(eff), is a critical variable which determines the temperature gradient in the snowpack and heat exchanges between the ground and the atmosphere through the snow. Its accurate knowledge is therefore required to simulate snow metamorphism, the ground thermal regime, permafrost stability, nutrient recycling and vegetation growth. Yet, few data are available on the seasonal evolution of snow thermal conductivity in the Arctic. We have deployed heated needle probes on low-Arctic shrub tundra near Umiujaq, Quebec, (N56 degrees 34'; W76 degrees 29') and monitored automatically the evolution of k(eff) for two consecutive winters, 2012-2013 and 2013-2014, at four heights in the snowpack. Shrubs are 20 cm high dwarf birch. Here, we develop an algorithm for the automatic determination of k(eff) from the heating curves and obtain 404 k(eff) values. We evaluate possible errors and biases associated with the use of the heated needles. The time evolution of k(eff) is very different for both winters. This is explained by comparing the meteorological conditions in both winters, which induced different conditions for snow metamorphism. In particular, important melting events in the second year increased snow hardness, impeding subsequent densification and increase in thermal conductivity. We conclude that shrubs have very important impacts on snow physical evolution: (1) shrubs absorb light and facilitate snow melt under intense radiation; (2) the dense twig network of dwarf birch prevent snow compaction, and therefore k(eff) increase; ( 3) the low density depth hoar that forms within shrubs collapsed in late winter, leaving a void that was not filled by snow.

Abstract: Climate model projections are often aggregated into multi-model averages of all models participating in an intercomparison project, such as the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP). The “multi-model” approach provides a sensitivity test to the models' structural choices and implicitly assumes that multiple models provide additional and more reliable information than a single model, with higher confidence being placed on results that are common to an ensemble. A first initiative of the ice sheet modeling community, SeaRISE, provided such multi-model average projections of polar ice sheets' contribution to sea-level rise. The SeaRISE Antarctic numerical experiments aggregated results from all models devoid of a priori selection, based on the capacity of such models to represent key ice-dynamical processes. Here, using the experimental setup proposed in SeaRISE, we demonstrate that correctly representing grounding line dynamics is essential to infer future Antarctic mass change. We further illustrate the significant impact on the ensemble mean and deviation of adding one model with a known bias in its ability of modeling grounding line dynamics. We show that this biased model can hardly be identified from the ensemble only based on its estimation of volume change, as ad hoc and untrustworthy parametrizations can force any modeled grounding line to retreat. However, tools are available to test parts of the response of marine ice sheet models to perturbations of climatic and/or oceanic origin (MISMIP, MISMIP3d). Based on recent projections of Pine Island Glacier mass loss, we further show that excluding ice sheet models that do not pass the MISMIP benchmarks decreases the mean contribution and standard deviation of the multi-model ensemble projection by an order of magnitude for that particular drainage basin.

Abstract: Modeling soil thermal dynamics at high latitudes and altitudes requires representations of physical processes such as snow insulation, soil freezing and thawing and subsurface conditions like soil water/ice content and soil texture. We have compared six different land models: JSBACH, ORCHIDEE, JULES, COUP, HYBRID8 and LPJ-GUESS, at four different sites with distinct cold region landscape types, to identify the importance of physical processes in capturing observed temperature dynamics in soils. The sites include alpine, high Arctic, wet polygonal tundra and non-permafrost Arctic, thus showing how a range of models can represent distinct soil temperature regimes. For all sites, snow insulation is of major importance for estimating topsoil conditions. However, soil physics is essential for the subsoil temperature dynamics and thus the active layer thicknesses. This analysis shows that land models need more realistic surface processes, such as detailed snow dynamics and moss cover with changing thickness and wetness, along with better representations of subsoil thermal dynamics.

Abstract: In ice flow modelling, the use of control methods to assimilate the dynamic and geometric state of an ice body has become common practice. These methods have primarily focussed on inverting for one of the two least known properties in glaciology, namely the basal friction coefficient or the ice viscosity parameter. Here, we present an approach to infer both properties simultaneously for the whole of the Antarctic ice sheet. After the assimilation, the root-mean-square deviation between modelled and observed surface velocities attains 8.7 ma(-1) for the entire domain, with a slightly higher value of 14.0 ma(-1) for the ice shelves. An exception in terms of the velocity mismatch is the Thwaites Glacier Ice Shelf, where the RMS value is almost 70 ma(-1). The reason is that the underlying Bedmap2 geometry ignores the presence of an ice rise, which exerts major control on the dynamics of the eastern part of the ice shelf. On these grounds, we suggest an approach to account for pinning points not included in Bedmap2 by locally allowing an optimisation of basal friction during the inversion. In this way, the velocity mismatch on the ice shelf of Thwaites Glacier is more than halved. A characteristic velocity mismatch pattern emerges for unaccounted pinning points close to the marine shelf front. This pattern is exploited to manually identify seven uncharted features around Antarctica that exert significant resistance to the shelf flow. Potential pinning points are detected on Fimbul, West, Shackleton, Nickerson and Venable ice shelves. As pinning points can provide substantial resistance to shelf flow, with considerable consequences if they became ungrounded in the future, the model community is in need of detailed bathymetry there. Our data assimilation points to some of these dynamically important features not present in Bedmap2 and implicitly quantifies their relevance.

Abstract: A case study of a low-level jet (LLJ) during the OPALE (Oxidant Production over Antarctic Land and its Export) summer campaign is presented. It has been observed at Dome C (East Antarctica) and is simulated accurately by the three-dimensional version of the Modele Atmospherique Regional (MAR). It is found that this low-level jet is not related to an episode of thermal wind, suggesting that Dome C may be a place where turbulence on flat terrain can be studied.

Abstract: Regional climate model MAR (Modele Atmospherique Regional) was run for the region of Dome C located on the East Antarctic plateau, during Antarctic summer 2011-2012, in order to refine our understanding of meteorological conditions during the OPALE tropospheric chemistry campaign. A very high vertical resolution is set up in the lower troposphere, with a grid spacing of roughly 2 m. Model output is compared with temperatures and winds observed near the surface and from a 45m high tower as well as sodar and radiation data. MAR is generally in very good agreement with the observations, but sometimes underestimates cloud formation, leading to an underestimation of the simulated downward long-wave radiation. Absorbed short-wave radiation may also be slightly overestimated due to an underestimation of the snow albedo, and this influences the surface energy budget and atmospheric turbulence. Nevertheless, the model provides sufficiently reliable information about surface turbulent fluxes, vertical profiles of vertical diffusion coefficients and boundary layer height when discussing the representativeness of chemical measurements made nearby the ground surface during field campaigns conducted at Concordia station located at Dome C (3233m above sea level).

Abstract: High-elevation glaciers covered by cold firn are undergoing substantial warming in response to ongoing climate change. This warming is affecting the ice/rock interface temperature, the primary driver of avalanching glacier instability on steep slopes. Prediction of future potential instability therefore requires appropriate modeling of the thermal evolution of these glaciers. Application of a state-of-the-art model to a glacier in the French Alps (Taconnaz) has provided the first evaluation of the temperature evolution of a cold hanging glacier through this century. Our observations and three-dimensional modeling of the glacier response (velocity, thickness, temperature, density, and water content) to climate change indicate that Taconnaz glacier will become temperate and potentially unstable over a large area by the end of the 21st century. The risk induced by this glacier hazard is high for the populated region below and makes observation and modeling of such glaciers a priority.

Abstract: The majority of Antarctic ice is discharged via long and narrow fast-flowing ice streams. At ice stream margins, the rapid transition from the vertical shearing flow in the ice ridges surrounding the stream to a rapidly sliding plug flow in the stream itself leads to high stress concentrations and a velocity field whose form is non-trivial to determine. In this paper, we develop a boundary layer theory for this narrow region separating a lubrication-type ice ridge flow and a membrane-type ice stream flow. This allows us to derive jump conditions for the outer models describing ridge and stream self-consistently. Much of our focus is, however, on determining the velocity and shear heating fields in the margin itself. Ice stream margins have been observed to change position over time, with potentially significant implications for ice stream discharge. Our boundary layer model allows us to extend previous work that has determined rates of margin migration from a balance between shear heating in the margin and the cooling effect of margin migration into the colder ice of the surrounding ice ridge. Solving for the transverse velocity field in the margin allows us to include the effect of advection due to lateral inflow of ice from the ridge on margin migration, and we demonstrate that this reduces the rate of margin migration, as previously speculated.

Abstract: The understanding of the nature and behavior of ice sheets in past warm periods is important for constraining the potential impacts of future climate change. The Pliocene warm period (between 3.264 and 3.025 Ma) saw global temperatures similar to those projected for future climates; nevertheless, Pliocene ice locations and extents are still poorly constrained. We present results from the efforts to simulate mid-Pliocene Greenland Ice Sheets by means of the international Pliocene Ice Sheet Modeling Intercomparison Project (PLISMIP). We compare the performance of existing numerical ice sheet models in simulating modern control and mid-Pliocene ice sheets with a suite of sensitivity experiments guided by available proxy records. We quantify equilibrated ice sheet volume on Greenland, identifying a potential range in sea level contributions from warm Pliocene scenarios. A series of statistical measures are performed to quantify the confidence of simulations with focus on inter-model and inter-scenario differences. We find that Pliocene Greenland Ice Sheets are less sensitive to differences in ice sheet model configurations and internal physical quantities than to changes in imposed climate forcing. We conclude that Pliocene ice was most likely to be limited to the highest elevations in eastern and southern Greenland as simulated with the highest confidence and by synthesizing available regional proxies; however, the extent of those ice caps needs to be further constrained by using a range of general circulation model (GCM) climate forcings.

Abstract: We present an approach to estimate the feedback from large-scale thawing of permafrost soils using a simplified, data-constrained model that combines three elements: soil carbon (C) maps and profiles to identify the distribution and type of C in permafrost soils; incubation experiments to quantify the rates of C lost after thaw; and models of soil thermal dynamics in response to climate warming. We call the approach the Permafrost Carbon Network Incubation-Panarctic Thermal scaling approach (PInc-PanTher). The approach assumes that C stocks do not decompose at all when frozen, but once thawed follow set decomposition trajectories as a function of soil temperature. The trajectories are determined according to a three-pool decomposition model fitted to incubation data using parameters specific to soil horizon types. We calculate litterfall C inputs required to maintain steady-state C balance for the current climate, and hold those inputs constant. Soil temperatures are taken from the soil thermal modules of ecosystem model simulations forced by a common set of future climate change anomalies under two warming scenarios over the period 2010 to 2100. Under a medium warming scenario (RCP4.5), the approach projects permafrost soil C losses of 12.2-33.4 Pg C; under a high warming scenario (RCP8.5), the approach projects C losses of 27.9-112.6 Pg C. Projected C losses are roughly linearly proportional to global temperature changes across the two scenarios. These results indicate a global sensitivity of frozen soil C to climate change (gamma sensitivity) of -14 to -19 PgC degrees C-1 on a 100 year time scale. For CH4 emissions, our approach assumes a fixed saturated area and that increases in CH4 emissions are related to increased heterotrophic respiration in anoxic soil, yielding CH4 emission increases of 7% and 35% for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively, which add an additional greenhouse gas forcing of approximately 10-18%. The simplified approach presented here neglects many important processes that may amplify or mitigate C release from permafrost soils, but serves as a data-constrained estimate on the forced, large-scale permafrost C response to warming.

Abstract: Submarine melting of the calving face of tidewater glaciers and the mechanical back force applied by the ice melange layer are two mechanisms generally proposed to explain seasonal variations at the calving front of tidewater glaciers. However, the way these processes affect the calving rate and glacier dynamics remains uncertain. In this study, we used a finite element-based model that solves the full Stokes equations to simulate the impact of these forcings on two-dimensional theoretical flow line glacier configurations. The model, which includes calving processes, suggests that frontal melting affects the position of the terminus only slightly (less than a few hundred metres) and does not affect the multiannual glacier mass balance at all. However, the ice melange has a greater impact on the advance and retreat cycles of the glacier front (more than several kilometres) and its consequences for the mass balance are not completely negligible, stressing the need for better characterization of forcing properties. We also show that ice melange forcing against the calving face can mechanically prevent crevasse propagation at sea level and hence prevent calving. Results also reveal different behaviours in grounded and floating glaciers: in the case of a floating extension, the strongest forcings can disrupt the glacier equilibrium by modifying its buttressing and ice flux at the grounding line.

Abstract: Snow microwave radiance assimilation (RA) or brightness temperature data assimilation (DA) has shown promise for improving snow water equivalent (SWE) estimation. A successful RA study requires, however, an analysis of the error characteristics of coupled land surface-radiative transfer models (LSM/RTMs). This paper focuses on the Community Land Model version 4 (CLM4) as the land-surface model and on the microwave emission model for layered snowpacks (MEMLS) and the dense media radiative transfer multilayer (DMRT-ML) model as RTMs. Using the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Cold Land Processes Field Experiment (CLPX) data sets and through synthetic experiments, the errors of the coupled CLM4/DMRT-ML and CLM4/MEMLS are characterized by: 1) evaluating the CLM4 snowpack state simulations; 2) assessing the performance of RTMs in simulating the brightness temperature (T-B); and 3) analyzing the correlations between the SWE error (epsilonSWE) and the T-B error (epsilonT-B) from the RA perspective. The results using the CLPX data sets show that, given a large error of the snow grain radius (epsilonre) under dry snowpack conditions (along with a small error of the snow temperature (epsilonT-snow)), the correlations between epsilonSWE and epsilonT-B are mainly determined by the relationship between epsilonr(e) and the snow depth error (epsilond(snow)) or the snow density error (epsilonrho(snow)). The synthetic experiments were carried out for the CLPX region (shallow snowpack conditions) and the Rocky Mountains (deep snowpack conditions) using the atmospheric ensemble reanalysis produced by the coupled DA Research Testbed/Community Atmospheric Model (CAM4). The synthetic experiments support the results from the CLPX data sets and show that the errors of soil (the water content and the temperature), snow wetness, and snow temperature mostly result in positive correlations between epsilonSWE and epsilonT-B. CLM4/DMRT-ML and CLM4/MEMLS tend to produce varying RA performance, with more positive and negative correlations between epsilonSWE and epsilonT-B, respectively. These results suggest the necessity of using multiple snowpack RTMs in RA to improve the SWE estimation at the continental scale. The results in this paper also show that the magnitude of epsilonr(e) and its relationship to epsilonSWE are important for the RA performance. Most of the SWE estimations in RA are improved when epsilonSWE and epsilon_r(e) show a high positive correlation (greater than 0.5).

Abstract: Two electromagnetic models were used to simulate snow emission at L-band from in situ measurements of snow properties collected at Dome C in Antarctica. Two different approaches were used: one based on the radiative transfer theory and the other on the wave approach. The soil moisture ocean salinity (SMOS) satellite observations performed at 1.4 GHz (21 cm) were used to check the validity of these models. Model results based on the wave approach were in good agreement with SMOS observations, particularly for incidence angles lower than 55 degrees. Comparisons suggest that the wave approach is more suitable to simulate brightness temperature at L-band than the transfer radiative theory, because interference between the layers of the snowpack is better taken into account. The model based on the wave approach was then used to investigate several L-band characteristics at Dome C. The emission e-folding depth, i.e., 67% of the signal, was estimated at 250 m, and 99% of the signal emanated from the top 900 m. L-band brightness temperature is only slightly affected by seasonal variations in surface temperature, confirming the high temporal stability of snow emission at low frequency. Sensitivity tests showed that good knowledge of density variability in the snowpack is essential for accurate simulations in L-band.

Abstract: On the Antarctic Plateau, snow specific surface area (SSA) close to the surface shows complex variations at daily to seasonal scales which affect the surface albedo and in turn the surface energy budget of the ice sheet. While snow metamorphism, precipitation and strong wind events are known to drive SSA variations, usually in opposite ways, their relative contributions remain unclear. Here, a comprehensive set of SSA observations at Dome C is analysed with respect to meteorological conditions to assess the respective roles of these factors. The results show an average 2-to-3-fold SSA decrease from October to February in the topmost 10 cm in response to the increase of air temperature and absorption of solar radiation in the snowpack during spring and summer. Surface SSA is also characterized by significant daily to weekly variations due to the deposition of small crystals with SSA up to 100m(2) kg(-1) onto the surface during snowfall and blowing snow events. To complement these field observations, the detailed snowpack model Crocus is used to simulate SSA, with the intent to further investigate the previously found correlation between interannual variability of summer SSA decrease and summer precipitation amount. To this end, some Crocus parameterizations have been adapted to Dome C conditions, and the model was forced by ERA-Interim reanalysis. It successfully matches the observations at daily to seasonal timescales, except for the few cases when snowfalls are not captured by the reanalysis. On the contrary, the interannual variability of summer SSA decrease is poorly simulated when compared to 14 years of microwave satellite data sensitive to the near-surface SSA. A simulation with disabled summer precipitation confirms the weak influence in the model of the precipitation on metamorphism, with only 6% enhancement. However, we found that disabling strong wind events in the model is sufficient to reconciliate the simulations with the observations. This suggests that Crocus reproduces well the contributions of metamorphism and precipitation on surface SSA, but snow compaction by the wind might be overestimated in the model.

Abstract: Nearly three-quarters of the growth in global carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and cement production between 2010 and 2012 occurred in China(1,2). Yet estimates of Chinese emissions remain subject to large uncertainty; inventories of China's total fossil fuel carbon emissions in 2008 differ by 0.3 gigatonnes of carbon, or 15 per cent(1,3-5). The primary sources of this uncertainty are conflicting estimates of energy consumption and emission factors, the latter being uncertain because of very few actual measurements representative of the mix of Chinese fuels. Here we re-evaluate China's carbon emissions using updated and harmonized energy consumption and clinker production data and two new and comprehensive sets of measured emission factors for Chinese coal. We find that total energy consumption in China was 10 per cent higher in 2000-2012 than the value reported by China's national statistics(6), that emission factors for Chinese coal are on average 40 per cent lower than the default values recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(7), and that emissions from China's cement production are 45 per cent less than recent estimates(1,4). Altogether, our revised estimate of China's CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production is 2.49 gigatonnes of carbon (2 standard deviations = +/-7.3 per cent) in 2013, which is 14 per cent lower than the emissions reported by other prominent inventories(1,4,8). Over the full period 2000 to 2013, our revised estimates are 2.9 gigatonnes of carbon less than previous estimates of China's cumulative carbon emissions(1,4). Our findings suggest that overestimation of China's emissions in 2000-2013 may be larger than China's estimated total forest sink in 1990-2007 (2.66 gigatonnes of carbon)(9) or China's land carbon sink in 2000-2009 (2.6 gigatonnes of carbon)(10).

Abstract: The description of snow microstructure in microwave models is often simplified to facilitate electromagnetic calculations. Within dense media radiative transfer (DMRT), the microstructure is commonly described by sticky hard spheres (SHS). An objective mapping of real snow onto SHS is however missing which prevents measured input parameters from being used for DMRT. In contrast, the microwave emission model of layered snowpacks (MEMLS) employs a conceptually different approach, based on the two-point correlation function which is accessible by tomography. Here we show the equivalence of both electromagnetic approaches by reformulating their microstructural models in a common framework. Using analytical results for the two-point correlation function of hard spheres, we show that the scattering coefficient in both models only differs by a factor which is close to unity, weakly dependent on ice volume fraction and independent of other microstructural details. Additionally, our analysis provides an objective retrieval method for the SHS parameters (diameter and stickiness) from tomography images. For a comprehensive data set we demonstrate the variability of stickiness and compare the SHS diameter to the optical equivalent diameter. Our results confirm the necessity of a large grain-size scaling when relating both diameters in the non-sticky case, as previously suggested by several authors.

Abstract: Combined records of snow accumulation rate, delta O-18 and deuterium excess were produced from several shallow ice cores and snow pits at NEEM (North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling), covering the period from 1724 to 2007. They are used to investigate recent climate variability and characterise the isotope-temperature relationship. We find that NEEM records are only weakly affected by inter-annual changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation. Decadal delta O-18 and accumulation variability is related to North Atlantic sea surface temperature and is enhanced at the beginning of the 19th century. No long-term trend is observed in the accumulation record. By contrast, NEEM delta O-18 shows multidecadal increasing trends in the late 19th century and since the 1980s. The strongest annual positive delta O-18 values are recorded at NEEM in 1928 and 2010, while maximum accumulation occurs in 1933. The last decade is the most enriched in delta O-18 (warmest), while the 11-year periods with the strongest depletion (coldest) are depicted at NEEM in 1815-1825 and 1836-1846, which are also the driest 11-year periods. The NEEM accumulation and delta O-18 records are strongly correlated with outputs from atmospheric models, nudged to atmospheric reanalyses. Best performance is observed for ERA reanalyses. Gridded temperature reconstructions, instrumental data and model outputs at NEEM are used to estimate the multidecadal accumulation-temperature and delta O-18-temperature relationships for the strong warming period in 1979-2007. The accumulation sensitivity to temperature is estimated at 11 +/- 2% degrees C-1 and the delta O-18-temperature slope at 1.1 +/- 0.2 parts per thousand degrees C-1, about twice as large as previously used to estimate last interglacial temperature change from the bottom part of the NEEM deep ice core.

Abstract: Locally grounded features in ice shelves, called ice rises and rumples, play a key role buttressing discharge from the Antarctic Ice Sheet and regulating its contribution to sea level. Ice rises typically rise several hundreds of meters above the surrounding ice shelf; shelf flow is diverted around them. On the other hand, shelf ice flows across ice rumples, which typically rise only a few tens of meters above the ice shelf. Ice rises contain rich histories of deglaciation and climate that extend back over timescales ranging from a few millennia to beyond the last glacial maximum. Numerical model results have shown that the buttressing effects of ice rises and rumples are significant, but details of processes and how they evolve remain poorly understood. Fundamental information about the conditions and processes that cause transitions between floating ice shelves, ice rises and ice rumples is needed in order to assess their impact on ice-sheet behavior. Targeted high-resolution observational data are needed to evaluate and improve prognostic numerical models and parameterizations of the effects of small-scale pinning points on grounding-zone dynamics. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license

Abstract: The propagation of elastic waves in polycrystals is revisited, with an emphasis on configurations relevant to the study of ice. Randomly oriented hexagonal single crystals are considered with specific, non-uniform, probability distributions for their major axis. Three typical textures or fabrics (i.e. preferred grain orientations) are studied in detail: one cluster fabric and two girdle fabrics, as found in ice recovered from deep ice cores. After computing the averaged elasticity tensor for the considered textures, wave propagation is studied using a wave equation with elastic constants c = < c > + delta c that are equal to an average plus deviations, presumed small, from that average. This allows for the use of the Voigt average in the wave equation, and velocities are obtained solving the appropriate Christoffel equation. The velocity for vertical propagation, as appropriate to interpret sonic logging measurements, is analysed in more details. Our formulae are shown to be accurate at the 0.5% level and they provide a rationale for previous empirical fits to wave propagation velocities with a quantitative agreement at the 0.07-0.7% level. We conclude that, within the formalism presented here, it is appropriate to use, with confidence, velocity measurements to characterize ice fabrics.

Abstract: We evaluated the seasonality of CO2 fluxes simulated by nine terrestrial ecosystem models of the TRENDY project against (1) the seasonal cycle of gross primary production (GPP) and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) measured at flux tower sites over different biomes, (2) gridded monthly Model Tree Ensembles-estimated GPP (MTE-GPP) and MTE-NEE obtained by interpolating many flux tower measurements with a machine-learning algorithm, (3) atmospheric CO2 mole fraction measurements at surface sites, and (4) CO2 total columns (X-CO2) measurements from the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON). For comparison with atmospheric CO2 measurements, the LMDZ4 transport model was run with time-varying CO2 fluxes of each model as surface boundary conditions. Seven out of the nine models overestimate the seasonal amplitude of GPP and produce a too early start in spring at most flux sites. Despite their positive bias for GPP, the nine models underestimate NEE at most flux sites and in the Northern Hemisphere compared with MTE-NEE. Comparison with surface atmospheric CO2 measurements confirms that most models underestimate the seasonal amplitude of NEE in the Northern Hemisphere (except CLM4C and SDGVM). Comparison with TCCON data also shows that the seasonal amplitude of X-CO2 is underestimated by more than 10% for seven out of the nine models (except for CLM4C and SDGVM) and that the MTE-NEE product is closer to the TCCON data using LMDZ4. From CO2 columns measured routinely at 10 TCCON sites, the constrained amplitude of NEE over the Northern Hemisphere is of 1.60.4 gC m(-2)d(-1), which translates into a net CO2 uptake during the carbon uptake period in the Northern Hemisphere of 7.92.0 PgC yr(-1).

Abstract: Basal slip of dislocations, the easiest deformation mechanism of ice crystals, does not allow a response to any strain state. The first steps of another mechanism, with a moving subgrain boundary precursor region, which permits accommodating the effect of an applied load, is investigated on an ice single crystal, mainly using synchrotron radiation Bragg diffraction imaging. During this process, the evolution of the local integrated intensity shows that there is both a general multiplication of dislocations within the crystal and a movement of basal dislocations towards the surface. The 'subgrain boundary precursor' region evolves towards a classical grain boundary when further deformed.

Abstract: This work presents a coupled experimental and modeling approach to better understand the role of stress field heterogeneities on deformation behavior in material with a high viscoplastic anisotropy e.g. polycrystalline ice. Full-field elasto-viscoplastic modeling is used to predict the local stress and strain field during transient creep in a polycrystalline ice sample. Modeling input includes the experimental starting microstructure and a validated slip system dependent flow law. EBSD measurements on selected areas are used to estimate the local dislocation field utilizing the Weighted Burgers Vector (WBV) analysis. Areas of local stress concentration correlate with triple junctions and grain boundaries, originating from strain incompatibilities between differently oriented grains. In these areas of highly heterogeneous stress patterns, (a) kink bands are formed and (b) WBV analysis shows a non-negligible c-axis component of the WBV. The correlation between this defect structure and presence of kink bands suggests that kink band formation is an efficient accommodation deformation mode. (C) 2015 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract: All recent climatic projections for the next century suggest that we are heading towards a warmer climate than today (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Fifth Assessment Report), driven by increasing atmospheric burdens of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. In particular, the volume mixing ratio of methane, the second-most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas, has increased by a factor of similar to 2.5 from the beginning of the European Industrial Revolution. Due to their complex responses to climatic factors, understanding of the dynamics of future global methane emissions and sinks is crucial for the next generation of climate projections. Of relevance to this problem, the Earth likely experienced warmer average temperatures than today during the Last Interglacial (LIG) period (130-115 kaBP). Interestingly, ice cores do not indicate a different methane mixing ratio from the Pre-Industrial Holocene (PIH), in other words the current interglacial period prior to anthropogenic influence. This is surprising as warmer temperatures might be expected to increase methane emissions. The present study aims to improve our understanding of the changes in the global methane budget through quantifying the relative importance of sources and sinks of methane during the last full glacial interglacial cycle. A fairly limited number of studies have investigated this cycle at the millenium time scale with most of them examining the doubling in CH4 from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the PIH. Though it is still a matter of debate, a general consensus suggests a predominant role to the change in methane emissions from wetlands and only a limited change in the oxidising capacity of the atmosphere. In the present study we provide an estimate of the relative importance of sources and sinks during the LIG period, using a complex climate chemistry model to quantify the sinks, and a methane emissions model included in a global land surface model, for the sources. We are not aware of any previous studies that have explicitly tackled sources and sinks of methane in the previous interglacial. Our results suggest that both emissions and sinks of methane were higher during the LIG period, relative to the PIH, resulting in similar atmospheric concentrations of methane. Our simulated change in methane lifetime is primarily driven by climate (i.e. air temperature and humidity). However, a significant part of the reduced methane lifetime is also attributable to the impact of changes in NO emissions from lightning. An increase in biogenic emissions of non-methane volatile organic compounds during the LIG seems unlikely to have compensated for the impact of temperature and humidity. Surface methane emissions from wetlands were higher in northern latitudes due to an increase of summer temperature, whilst the change in the tropics is less certain. Simulated methane emissions are strongly sensitive to the atmospheric forcing, with most of this sensitivity related to changes in wetland extent. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract: A warming climate is altering land-atmosphere exchanges of carbon, with a potential for increased vegetation productivity as well as the mobilization of permafrost soil carbon stores. Here we investigate land-atmosphere carbon dioxide (CO2) cycling through analysis of net ecosystem productivity (NEP) and its component fluxes of gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER) and soil carbon residence time, simulated by a set of land surface models (LSMs) over a region spanning the drainage basin of Northern Eurasia. The retrospective simulations cover the period 1960-2009 at 0.5 degrees resolution, which is a scale common among many global carbon and climate model simulations. Model performance benchmarks were drawn from comparisons against both observed CO2 fluxes derived from site-based eddy covariance measurements as well as regional-scale GPP estimates based on satellite remote-sensing data. The site-based comparisons depict a tendency for overestimates in GPP and ER for several of the models, particularly at the two sites to the south. For several models the spatial pattern in GPP explains less than half the variance in the MODIS MOD17 GPP product. Across the models NEP increases by as little as 0.01 to as much as 0.79 g Cm-2 yr(-2), equivalent to 3 to 340% of the respective model means, over the analysis period. For the multimodel average the increase is 135% of the mean from the first to last 10 years of record (1960-1969 vs. 2000-2009), with a weakening CO2 sink over the latter decades. Vegetation net primary productivity increased by 8 to 30% from the first to last 10 years, contributing to soil carbon storage gains. The range in regional mean NEP among the group is twice the multimodel mean, indicative of the uncertainty in CO2 sink strength. The models simulate that inputs to the soil carbon pool exceeded losses, resulting in a net soil carbon gain amid a decrease in residence time. Our analysis points to improvements in model elements controlling vegetation productivity and soil respiration as being needed for reducing uncertainty in land-atmosphere CO2 exchange. These advances will require collection of new field data on vegetation and soil dynamics, the development of benchmarking data sets from measurements and remote-sensing observations, and investments in future model development and intercomparison studies.

Abstract: Large parts of the Antarctic ice sheet lying on bedrock below sea level may be vulnerable to marine-ice-sheet instability (MISI)(1), a self-sustaining retreat of the grounding line triggered by oceanic or atmospheric changes. There is growing evidence(2-4) that MISI may be underway throughout the Amundsen Sea embayment (ASE), which contains ice equivalent to more than a metre of global sea-level rise. If triggered in other regions(5-8), the centennial to millennial contribution could be several metres. Physically plausible projections are challenging(9): numerical models with sufficient spatial resolution to simulate grounding-line processes have been too computationally expensive(2,3,10) to generate large ensembles for uncertainty assessment, and lower-resolution model projections(11) rely on parameterizations that are only loosely constrained by present day changes. Here we project that the Antarctic ice sheet will contribute up to 30 cm sea-level equivalent by 2100 and 72 cm by 2200 (95% quantiles) where the ASE dominates. Our process-based, statistical approach gives skewed and complex probability distributions (single mode, 10 cm, at 2100; two modes, 49 cm and 6 cm, at 2200). The dependence of sliding on basal friction is a key unknown: nonlinear relationships favour higher contributions. Results are conditional on assessments of MISI risk on the basis of projected triggers under the climate scenario A1B (ref. 9), although sensitivity to these is limited by theoretical and topographical constraints on the rate and extent of ice loss. We find that contributions are restricted by a combination of these constraints, calibration with success in simulating observed ASE losses, and low assessed risk in some basins. Our assessment suggests that upper-bound estimates from low-resolution models and physical arguments9 (up to a metre by 2100 and around one and a half by 2200) are implausible under current understanding of physical mechanisms and potential triggers.

Abstract: The atmospheric boundary layer over the Antarctic Plateau is unique on account of its isolated location and extreme stability. Here we investigate the characteristics of the boundary layer using wind and temperature measurements from a 45-m high tower located at Dome C. First, spectral analysis reveals that both fields have a scaling behaviour from 30 min to 10 days (spectral slope ). Wind and temperature time series also show a multifractal behaviour. Therefore, it is possible to fit the moment-scaling function to the universal multifractal model and obtain multifractal parameters for temperature () and wind speed (). The same analysis is repeated separately in winter and summer at six different heights. The parameter shows a strong stratification with height especially in summer, implying that properties of turbulence change surprisingly rapidly from the ground to the top of the tower.

Abstract: FlowCapt acoustic sensors, designed for measuring the aeolian transport of snow fluxes, are compared to the snow particle counter S7optical sensor, considered herein as the reference. They were compared in the French Alps at the Lac Blanc Pass, where a bench test for the aeolian transport of snow was set up. The two existing generations of FlowCapt are compared. Both seem to be good detectors for the aeolian transport of snow, especially for transport events with a flux above 1 g m(-2) s(-1). The second-generation FlowCapt is also compared in terms of quantification. The aeolian snow mass fluxes and snow quantity transported recorded by the second-generation FlowCapt are close to the integrative snow particle counter S7 fluxes for an event without precipitation, but they are underestimated when an event with precipitation is considered. When the winter season is considered, for integrative snow particle counter S7 fluxes above 20 g m(-2) s(-1), the second-generation FlowCapt fluxes are underestimated, regardless of precipitation. In conclusion, both generations of FlowCapt can be used as a drifting snow detector and the second generation can record an underestimation of the quantity of snow transported at one location: over the winter season, the quantity of snow transported recorded by the SPC is between 4 and 6 times greater than the quantity recorded by the second-generation FlowCapt.

Abstract: The retreat of glaciers in the Kerguelen Islands (49 degrees S, 69 degrees E) and their associated climatic causes have been analyzed using field data and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite images to validate a positive degree-day (PDD) model forced by data from local meteorological stations. Mass balance measurements made during recent field campaigns on the largest glacier of the Cook Ice Cap were compared to data from the early 1970s, providing a 40year view of the differences in the spatial distribution of surface mass balance (SMB). To obtain additional regional data for the validation of our models, we analyzed MODIS images (2000-2012) to determine if our model was capable of reproducing variations in the transient snow line. The PDD model correctly simulated the variations in the snow line, the spatial variations in the SMB, and its trend with elevation. Yet current SMB values diverge from their classic linear representation with elevation, and stake data at high altitudes now display more negative SMB values than expected. By analyzing MODIS albedo, we observed that these values are caused by the disappearance of snow and associated feedback on melt rates. In addition, certain parts of Ampere Glacier could not be reproduced by the surface energy balance model because of overaccumulation due to wind deposition. Finally, the MODIS data, field data, and our models suggest that the acceleration of glacier wastage in Kerguelen is due to reduced net accumulation and an associated rise in the snow line since the 1970s.

Abstract: The deadliest outburst flood from an englacial cavity occurred on Glacier de Tete Rousse in the Mont Blanc area, French Alps, in 1892. A subglacial reservoir was discovered in the same glacier in 2010 and drained artificially in 2010, 2011 and 2012 to protect the 3000 inhabitants downstream. The mechanism leading to the spontaneous refilling of the cavity following these pumping operations has been analyzed. For this purpose, the subglacial water volume changes between 2010 and 2013 were reconstructed. The size of the cavity following the pumping was found to have decreased from 53 500 m(3) in 2010 to 12 750 m(3) in 2013. Creep and the partial collapse of the cavity roof explain a large part of the volume loss. Analysis of cavity filling showed a strong relationship between measured surface melting and the filling rate, with a time delay of 4-6 hours. A permanent input of 15 m(3) d(-1), not depending on surface melt, was also found. The meltwater and rain from the surface is conveyed to bedrock through crevasses and probably through a permeable layer of rock debris at the glacier bed. The drainage pathway permeability was estimated at 0.054 m s(-1) from water discharge measurements and dye-tracing experiments.

Abstract: Seasonal snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere is the largest component of the terrestrial cryosphere and plays a major role in the climate system through strong positive feedbacks related to albedo. The snow-albedo feedback is invoked as an important cause for the polar amplification of ongoing and projected climate change, and its parameterization across models is an important source of uncertainty in climate simulations. Here, instead of developing a physical snow albedo scheme, we use a direct insertion approach to assimilate satellite- based surface albedo during the snow season (hereafter as snow albedo assimilation) into the land surface model ORCHIDEE (ORganizing Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic EcosystEms) and assess the influences of such assimilation on offline and coupled simulations. Our results have shown that snow albedo assimilation in both ORCHIDEE and ORCHIDEE-LMDZ (a general circulation model of Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique) improve the simulation accuracy of mean seasonal (October throughout May) snow water equivalent over the region north of 40 degrees. The sensitivity of snow water equivalent to snow albedo assimilation is more pronounced in the coupled simulation than the offline simulation since the feedback of albedo on air temperature is allowed in ORCHIDEE-LMDZ. We have also shown that simulations of air temperature at 2 meters in ORCHIDEE-LMDZ due to snow albedo assimilation are significantly improved during the spring in particular over the eastern Siberia region. This is a result of the fact that high amounts of shortwave radiation during the spring can maximize its snow albedo feedback, which is also supported by the finding that the spatial sensitivity of temperature change to albedo change is much larger during the spring than during the autumn and winter. In addition, the radiative forcing at the top of the atmosphere induced by snow albedo assimilation during the spring is estimated to be -2.50 Wm(-2), the magnitude of which is almost comparable to that due to CO2 (2.83 Wm(-2)) increases since 1750. Our results thus highlight the necessity of realistic representation of snow albedo in the model and demonstrate the use of satellite-based snow albedo to improve model behaviors, which opens new avenues for constraining snow albedo feedback in earth system models.

Abstract: Spring snow cover extent (SCE) in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased in the last four decades but with significant interannual variability. Investigations of the mechanisms that control SCE variations were almost exclusively focused on the year-to-year variability of forcing variables and SCE integrated over a certain period of the year (e.g. season). Here, we use state-of-the-art climate reanalysis dataset to analyze the contribution of different surface energy fluxes to the inception and development of below-normal spring SCE from an intraseasonal perspective. During years identified with lower-than-average SCE by the end of spring, higher-than-average net longwave radiation and sensible heat that is greater than the decrease of net shortwave radiation in the early spring snowmelt season induces the initial SCE deficit. This can be mainly explained by the finding that the increase of downwelling longwave radiation because of increased water vapor significantly exceeds the attenuation of downwelling short-wave radiation due to increased cloudiness. When a SCE deficit has been incepted in early spring, net shortwave radiation in late spring gradually becomes higher than average through snow albedo feedback, which further accelerates snowmelt. This suggests that shortwave radiation is not responsible for the initiation of negative SCE anomaly by the end of spring but acts as an amplifying feedback once the snow melt is started.

Abstract: Macroscopic crystal plasticity is classically viewed as an outcome of uncorrelated dislocation motions producing Gaussian fluctuations. An apparently conflicting picture emerged in recent years emphasizing highly correlated dislocation dynamics characterized by power-law distributed fluctuations. We use acoustic emission measurements in crystals with different symmetries to show that intermittent and continuous visions of plastic flow are not incompatible. We demonstrate the existence of crossover regimes where strongly intermittent events coexist with a Gaussian quasiequilibrium background and propose a simple theoretical framework compatible with these observations.

Abstract: Satellite altimetric time series allow high-precision monitoring of ice-sheet mass balance. Understanding elevation changes in these regions is important because outlet glaciers along ice-sheet margins are critical in controlling flow of inland ice. Here we discuss a new airborne altimetry dataset collected as part of the ICECAP (International Collaborative Exploration of the Cryosphere by Airborne Profiling) project over East Antarctica. Using the ALAMO (Airborne Laser Altimeter with Mapping Optics) system of a scanning photon-counting lidar combined with a laser altimeter, we extend the 2003-09 surface elevation record of NASA's ICESat satellite, by determining cross-track slope and thus independently correcting for ICESat's cross-track pointing errors. In areas of high slope, cross-track errors result in measured elevation change that combines surface slope and the actual Delta z/Delta t signal. Slope corrections are particularly important in coastal ice streams, which often exhibit both rapidly changing elevations and high surface slopes. As a test case (assuming that surface slopes do not change significantly) we observe a lack of ice dynamic change at Cook Ice Shelf, while significant thinning occurred at Totten and Denman Glaciers during 2003-09.

Abstract: Carbon dioxide emissions from wild and anthropogenic fires return the carbon absorbed by plants to the atmosphere, and decrease the sequestration of carbon by land ecosystems. Future climate warming will likely increase the frequency of fire-triggering drought, so that the future terrestrial carbon uptake will depend on how fires respond to altered climate variation. In this study, we modelled the role of fires in the global terrestrial carbon balance for 1901-2012, using the ORCHIDEE global vegetation model equipped with the SPITFIRE model. We conducted two simulations with and without the fire module being activated, using a static land cover. The simulated global fire carbon emissions for 1997-2009 are 2.1 Pg C yr(-1), which is close to the 2.0 Pg C yr(-1) as estimated by GFED3.1. The simulated land carbon uptake after accounting for emissions for 2003-2012 is 3.1 Pg C yr(-1), which is within the uncertainty of the residual carbon sink estimation (2 : 8 +/- 0 : 8 Pg C yr(-1)). Fires are found to reduce the terrestrial carbon uptake by 0.32 Pg C yr(-1) over 1901-2012, or 20% of the total carbon sink in a world without fire. The fire-induced land sink reduction (SRfire) is significantly correlated with climate variability, with larger sink reduction occurring in warm and dry years, in particular during El Nino events. Our results suggest a “fire respiration partial compensation”. During the 10 lowest SRfire years (SRfire = 0.17 Pg C yr(-1)), fires mainly compensate for the heterotrophic respiration that would occur in a world without fire. By contrast, during the 10 highest SRfire fire years (SRfire = 0.49 Pg C yr(-1)), fire emissions far exceed their respiration partial compensation and create a larger reduction in terrestrial carbon uptake. Our findings have important implications for the future role of fires in the terrestrial carbon balance, because the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to sequester carbon will be diminished by future climate change characterized by increased frequency of droughts and extreme El Nino events.

Abstract: Processes that describe the distribution of vegetation and ecosystem succession after disturbance are an important component of dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs). The vegetation dynamics module (ORC-VD) within the process-based ecosystem model ORCHIDEE (Organizing Carbon and Hydrology in Dynamic Ecosystems) has not been updated and evaluated since many years and is known to produce unrealistic results. This study presents a new parameterization of ORC-VD for mid- to high-latitude regions in the Northern Hemisphere, including processes that influence the existence, mortality and competition between tree functional types. A new set of metrics is also proposed to quantify the performance of ORC-VD, using up to five different data sets of satellite land cover, forest biomass from remote sensing and inventories, a data-driven estimate of gross primary productivity (GPP) and two gridded data sets of soil organic carbon content. The scoring of ORC-VD derived from these metrics integrates uncertainties in the observational data sets. This multi-data set evaluation framework is a generic method that could be applied to the evaluation of other DGVM models. The results of the original ORC-VD published in 2005 for mid- to high-latitudes and of the new parameterization are evaluated against the above-described data sets. Significant improvements were found in the modeling of the distribution of tree functional types north of 40 degrees N. Three additional sensitivity runs were carried out to separate the impact of different processes or drivers on simulated vegetation distribution, including soil freezing which limits net primary production through soil moisture availability in the root zone, elevated CO2 concentration since 1850, and the effects of frequency and severity of extreme cold events during the spin-up phase of the model.